


Just A Little Push (Can't We Call It Nudging?)

by ArwenLune



Category: Flashpoint
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Disability, Ed is a nosy bastard, F/M, Greg dresses as Agent Coulson for Halloween, Grief/Mourning, I just have a lot of Greg feels OK?, Learning to Be Happy, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Spoilers for One Wrong Move, and he's not even sorry, writing this while watching the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 59,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/ArwenLune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg learns to be happy, with a little help from his friends</p><p>(starts in the 2nd half of S2, so spoilers for everything from there onward)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK, when I started writing this I hadn't finished watching the series, so at times I'm playing with things that get resolved later. Apart from the Marina issue - she doesn't exist here - it is canon compliant though. 
> 
> I started writing this before I realised the series was set in Canada. The Canadian Royal Navy probably doesn't let ship's personnel off in Toronto if there's no naval base there, but what the hell.

"Hey boss, you working today?"

Greg thunked shut his locker with slightly more than necessary force. "Yeah Eddie, why?"

"Thought the _HMCS Toronto_ came in today."

"It is."

"And...?"

Greg ignored him as he laced up his shoes.

"And, you're going, right?" Ed Lane said, hanging up his coat. "Meet your girl on the quayside. Right?"

No response.

"What the hell happened? Couple of weeks ago you were counting down the days until she got home."

"Yeah, well."

It wasn't like the boss had been informative about how his relationship was going during his girlfriend's deployment, but Ed had pried it out of him a few times, and they'd been doing okay. It was apparently her 9th tour, so he supposed she was used to the rhythms of it. But clearly something had happened, because today was supposed to have been a personal day for the boss.

Nothing much more was forecoming, and Ed quickly changed into uniform, because the boss was about to walk out of this conversation and he had no intention of letting the subject go.

"What happened?" he asked, stepping into his boots. Kept his back to Greg. No pressure, boss. No interrogation. Just a concerned friend.

"We... talked about moving in together."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, we talked... I asked if she wanted to move in. And she said no."

"She said no," Ed echoed, keeping his tone neutral. He knew Greg had only been seeing this woman for about half a year when she was deployed, and that it wasn't casual, but he couldn't really estimate if it was particularly early in the relationship to talk about cohabitation. Long deployments tended to change things, and two adults with busy careers didn't usually spent an age dating if they were on the same page. Which Greg and his sailor girl apparently hadn't been.

"Empathically no. Hell no. _Fuck_ no."

"Ouch," Ed said.

Greg breathed out a harsh laugh.

"Yeah. I mean I.. well. She said we'd talk about it later, but we haven't really had much contact since."

"But you're still on? You haven't broken up?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest." Greg got up and walked out of the locker room. Ed closed his locker and followed, still doing up the buttons of his uniform shirt.

"And now you're not going to the ship's arrival."

"I'm... no. Probably not. I'll wait to see if she calls."

"Boss, do you _want_ it to be over?" Ed asked, following Greg into the briefing room. It was still empty at this time of morning, and he made a surreptitious gesture to Wordy to stay out for a bit longer.

"No," Greg said quietly. "No, I do not."

"Then stop pretending that's a decision you have no influence on. If you're not on the quayside this afternoon, it's definitely over. She hasn't got anybody else around here, does she?"

"Not really, no. Her family lives way up in the North West."

"So letting her be the one who's got nobody waiting for her? Definitely over. Now I'm not saying that things will magically be okay if you go-" he held up his hand to stop Greg from interrupting, "but at least you haven't made up her mind for her."

The boss was giving him a flat stare that Ed thought was 50% 'Oh God, stop talking about my personal life' and 50% tentative hope that things might not be as over as he'd thought they were.

"I'm willing to bet that the last weeks of a ship's tour are insanely busy. And I gotta say, boss, I'm not sure what you thought would happen.  Here's a woman who's just spent the better part of a year sharing a small cabin, using communal showers, and having every part of her life decided for her. I'd think that all she can think about right now is having her own space for a while, getting some mental elbow room."

Greg snorted.

"When you put it like that."

"So, you're going. Good." Ed grinned and took a seat.

"If we don't get called out," Greg conceded, "I will go."

 

Unfortunately they did get called out. Once they'd set up shop in the office building Ed asked Spike to monitor the quayside webcam, because there would be some time between the ship mooring off and personnel being let off, but then all of them got sucked into the crisis.

Ed had quite forgotten about the whole situation when Spike nudged him to say debarkation would begin in two hours. Greg was deep into the negotiations, and there was no way to get him out - Ed might want to give the boss a bit of a shove toward getting a personal life, but work still came first. He turned his thoughts toward the alternative.

"Winnie, is there anybody knocking around the station who's not waiting to go on duty? Sergeant Parker needs a favour."

"Give me a moment."

 

She came back a few minutes later.

"Donna Sabine has just come off duty, sir. What is this about?"

 

"In about two hours, he needs somebody picked up from the Navy ship that's just come in today. Petty Officer First Class Grace Gaudin. Sabine needs to make contact with her, then contact us to see if Greg is free to speak to her. Either way, pick up the sailor and bring her home or wherever she wants to go. Tell Sabine I owe her."

"I'll arrange it, sir."

 

"Petty Officer First Class, huh?" Jules grinned from her prone sniper position. "That the Sarges' girlfriend?"

"Let's hope so," he answered, raising his binoculars to his eyes.

"And if she isn't?"

"Then I owe Donna a favour for picking up somebody who's just come off 10 months of deployment and didn't have anybody to pick her up. I can live with that."

"Fair enough," Jules agreed. "Ohh, there he goes again..."

They both watched as the hostage taker escalated again, and this time the scorpio order came. Less than a minute later, Jules pulled the trigger.

 

Half an hour later Ed called Winnie again to let her know Donna didn't need to go. He was pretty sure he could arrange for Greg to get there in time himself. Greg just didn't know it yet. When the immediate matters had been dealt with he enlisted Wordy. Jules would have been easier, since she already knew about the plan, but she was dealing with the paperwork that came with the killshot.

"Ah, thought it might have something to do with that," Wordy just said, because nothing much got past Wordy. "Sure. Are you strong-arming him into the car or am I?"

"I am," Ed said. "TL's privilege. You're driving. In fact..."

There was a momentary lull as the last ambulance left, and Wordy grinned, handing his main weapon off to Lew and walked toward one of the cars.

"Boss!" Ed came up beside Greg, who was staring morosely at the scene of the earlier drama. For once, Ed didn't think it was only that crisis on the man's mind. "I'll handle the inspector, you go with Wordy." He nodded to where Wordy had driven up.

"What?"

"To the quay," Ed said meaningfully.

"Ship must have arrived hours ago, Eddie," Greg sighed. "So much for that idea."

"Spike monitored the webcam feed. They're starting to disembark personnel in half an hour."

"I just need to-"

"Go. You need to let your TL handle this and go."

He didn't _quite_ shove his boss toward the passenger side of the car, but he might have wanted to. Wordy grinned and pulled away as soon as the boss was seated.

 

"I take it this means everybody knows about this now?" Greg sighed, giving in to the irresistible force of his team conspiring.

"Know that you have somebody to meet off the _HMCS Toronto,"_ Kevin  shrugged. That wasn't quite true, because he was aware of the girlfriend and the deployment, but it all seemed awkwardly personal enough for the boss.

Greg said nothing as Kevin talked them through the Navy barrier, taking the car into the huge quayside area where everybody else was walking. There were people walking down the ramp, running to families, tight little knots of hugs and kisses. Kevin circled the crowd to where Greg had a good view through the passenger side, and turned off the engine.

"Go ahead boss, I'll wait," he said easily.

Right. This was the worrying part. The part where he found out if he'd come to pick up his girlfriend or see his ex one last time. He'd been so convinced these last weeks that she had soundly rejected him and wasn't interested in any more contact that Ed's version of events still felt like fiction to him.

He got out and leaned against the side of the car, vaguely aware he was still in full uniform. It didn't feel as out of place between the sailors and marines as it might have done anywhere else, but still. He shrugged out of his vest and put it in the trunk, taking off his sidearm too. He'd always made an effort to leave work behind when he spent time with her.

He still didn't see her, and the stream of fatigue-clad people coming down the ramp was beginning to slow. Many in the crowd were already walking away, reunited with their loved ones. Heading home. Greg suddenly worried she'd come down and met somebody else, that he hadn't spotted her in the throng.

Then he saw a fatigue-clad figure pause at the bottom of the gangway, looking a little forlorn, and he started walking, forcing away the fear that she didn't want to see him. Letting the sight of her pull him in with long strides and not allowing himself any hesitation.

She saw him when he was about thirty paces away, and her face cleared, a smile breaking through her weariness, crinkling her wide-set eyes. She dropped her giant duffle and cut through his worry about how was appropriate to greet her by stepping straight into his arms.

"Gracie," he sighed.

She wasn't a tall woman, but she had a strong, athletic frame, and there was nothing gentle or hesitant about this embrace. Her dark brown hair was braided back neatly, and there were grey streaks he'd not seen before. He held on hard and felt her press her face against his neck, let his hand cup the back of her head.

"God, I've missed you," he whispered.

"I'm sorry," she said into his neck. "I know I reacted badly and I didn't mean I don't want to be with you, it's just--it's the place I spent ten months thinking of as paradise and I was really sick of my cabin mate and you were asking me to give it up and I just-- and I pulled double shifts these last few weeks and I couldn't figure out how to explain.."

She opened up like this sometimes, in fits and starts, like all the words got dammed up and then suddenly broke free.

"It's okay," he soothed, feeling a tight knot in his chest loosen at her rambled explanation. "I shouldn't have reacted like that. You need your own space, no problem."

He had hoped for combined lives at some point, but they only lived a 20 minute drive apart. If that was what she wanted, he could live with it.

He gently tugged her head back by her braid so he could kiss her, and she went relaxed in his arms. He kept the kiss short and light with great effort.

"Let me bring you home. I don't have to stay if you.. if you want some time alone."

"Yeah?" she looked at him. "You'd be okay with that? I don't really want to let go right now," she tightened the already tight hug a little, "but I think I need some decompression time before I will be fit for human company."

"If that's what you need, we'll do that."

He kissed her again, brief and hard, and then disengaged, leaving her looking satisfyingly dazed. He picked up her duffle and lead her toward the car where Wordy was still waiting.

"I can come by tomorrow?" he offered.

"I would like that."

"Okay," he smiled, opening the trunk to put in her bag. "This is Kevin Wordsworth, part of the conspiracy to make sure I could actually be here to meet you. Wordy, this is Grace."

"Nice to meet you," she greeted him. "Conspiracy, huh?"

"Just doing our part to free the boss up from the bureaucracy in time to be here," Kevin shrugged, starting the car. Greg got into the back seat with Grace, knowing he'd catch shit for it later and allowing himself the luxury of profoundly not caring.

"Yeah? She said, meeting Kevin's eyes via the rear view mirror. "Thank you, then."

"You're very welcome."

She smiled and leaned against Greg, her head against his shoulder, and he held on to her hand while he told Kevin where they were going.

 

"Do you have anything in the house?" he asked a few minutes later. She had her eyes closed, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead on impulse. He still couldn't quite believe that this was the reality they were in. The one where they'd misunderstood each other and then, through distance and work pressure, had failed to figure that out. The reality where he still got to do this. 

"I ordered a load of shopping for tomorrow morning," she said quietly. "Be okay until then."

"Yeah, no," Greg decided. "I'm not leaving you in a house with an empty fridge. We'll get you some stuff. Wordy, there's a small supermarket ahead on the right."

"Sure thing."

 

Kevin made a sneaky phone photo of his boss walking hand in hand with his girlfriend as they went into the shop, amused by the look of the SRU uniform next to the Navy cammies. Then he sent the photo to Ed. The phone rang twenty seconds later.

"Can I assume that's a successful mission?" Ed opened.  

"Seems like it to me. They're cute together."

"Cute, huh?"

"You ever look at the way couples look at each other?"

"Living with four women and their romantic crap is softening your brain, Wordy."

"Sure. But I'm not the one who made a real effort to set my boss up with his girlfriend, so I'm not the only one with a soft brain in this conversation," he shot back cheerfully.

"What's she like?" Ed changed the subject, which was an acknowledgement in itself.

"Late thirties, First Nation decent I think?"

"I think he mentioned her family is from around Great Slave Lake."

"Uh-huh. Anyway, she seems nice, maybe a little hard edged."

"Career Navy," Ed shrugged.

"Yeah. I'm guessing she's so tired right now it's hard to say what she's like. Sharp though - I'm pretty sure she caught that his team making sure he was there wasn't just about logistics."

"Boss seem happy to you?"

"Boss seems like he can't quite believe it yet, but he's currently leading her around a supermarket to buy some stuff for tonight, so I'm gonna go with 'yes'," Kevin grinned.

"His car is still at the station. Whereabouts does she live? We got anybody comes past there to pick him up tomorrow?"

"Didn't sound like he was staying, actually."

"Hmm. Well, if he does, let him know we'll figure out a ride."

"Copy that. They've been inside a while, actually. I'm gonna go and check the boss hasn't gotten himself taken hostage."

"Fuck, don't say things like that," Ed laughed. "I'll see you at the station."

 

Kevin strolled into the shop, making a calming gesture when the manager looked alarmed.

"Donut run," he grinned, which wasn't true because donuts were banned by team agreement, but it was good shorthand for 'Nothing is wrong' toward the public.

He found the boss in the sweets isle, just standing there with his hand on the nape of Grace's neck, watching her face with a smile. She was staring at the racks, now and then making small, abortive motions toward the cookies.

Greg spotted him and grinned.

"Hey Kevin. We've got some decision issues going on here."

"Ah, so many options," he grinned back.

"You're making fun of me," Grace complained half-heartedly, eyes never leaving the cookies.

"I am fondly amused by you," Greg corrected, tugging her close so he could press a kiss against her temple. Kevin hid his surprise. He hadn't really expected the boss to demonstrative.

"Shopping online was much easier," she sighed after a moment. "Too tired to make choices. Pick me something?"

Greg grabbed something fancy and indulgent and tossed it into the basket, and then lead her toward the checkout.

She glanced first to him, then Kevin on her other side, and chuckled.

"I'll bet that half the people in this shop are wondering if you arrested me to buy me milk and cookies and croissants."

"Standard procedure," Kevin told her, deadpan. He had to admit that the way they were flanking her, and Greg's hand in her neck, really only lacked handcuffs to complete the picture. She was leaning into the touch though, and mostly seemed amused.

"Usually there's chocolate milk too," Greg added, paying for the groceries before she'd located her wallet. She threw him a look of weary bemusement and let herself be lead outside and into the car.

 

She had a one-bedroom place at the top floor of an old building. He supposed the pokiness of the flat was made up for by the enormous view out the windows: city, fields, coastline and in the distance, endless water. It was old, but everything looked well-loved and personal; a comfortable old leather chair, a spinning wheel, a giant bookcase, lots of wood art, a handwoven rug with aborigine patterns. The last gave the place a unique scent, earthy and animal, that he thought might be bison. He supposed that if she was on deployment a lot, this was a good place to come home to. It was like a cocoon.  

He and Greg went around the flat to plug in appliances and make sure the stove and hot water worked. Grace threw open the balcony door and then just stood there in the chilly breeze, looking out into the distance. He thought it was about half enjoying the familiar view and half simple inertia.

"You want a fire?"

Greg opened the wood stove, which had wood already laid.

"That's okay, I can--"

Kevin caught the look - the one Lew and Spike referred to as the 'Boss Look' - Greg threw her, and hid his grin. Apparently it was just as effective on his girlfriend, though possibly it had something to do with how tired she was.

"Is the chimney clear?"

"Err... should be? Communal upkeep."

 

A few minutes later there was a fire crackling, and Grace was offering coffee, digging around in kitchen cupboards to see what was there.

Greg came up and stilled her, hands on her arms.  
"We don't want coffee, okay? The whole point was that you get to spend some time enjoying your own space, not hosting us. Have a bath, enjoy the fire, sleep as long as you feel like - I'll call you tonight. Just turn your phone off if you go to bed early, so I don't wake you. Okay?"

 

She took a deep breath.  
"Yeah, it's just - yeah, okay."

Greg kissed her forehead.

"Enjoy."

"Thanks.." she turned to Kevin. "Thank you, too."

"Glad to help," he said with a smile. "Enjoy your downtime, ma'am."

 

Greg was smiling all the way to the station. He would catch himself, even out his expression, and then a few minutes later it was back. It made Kevin grin inwardly. If anybody deserved to be wildly, stupidly happy, it was the boss.

He was pretty sure Ed was going to be organising one of those 'bring your partner' team nights just so he would get to meet her too.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breaking news: the SRU HQ now has a small climbing wall in the back of the gym.

"Don't work out too hard, boss!"

"Yeah, got to save some energy for tonight."

"I mean, she's been at sea for 10 months, right?"

Greg dropped down from the pull-up bar and slowly, ominously turned to look at his team.

"That's enough about my private life, gentlemen." He looked at Ed, who was, as usual, front and centre in the peanut gallery.

"All I'm saying is you can probably skip the cardio," Ed grinned, and Greg worked hard on keeping his face straight and unamused, because there was no way he was willing to share his level of anticipation about his evening plans.

Ed made a conciliatory gesture. "Okay, fine. None of our business."

"Thank you."

And damn it, he _had_ planned to go easy on the cardio today, but now they'd be watching him like hawks and would note any deviation from his normal workout routine.

Jules, bless her, came to his rescue by challenging the guys to a climbing run. She was their unmatched champion; only Lew came close, and that bugged them all enough that everybody threw themselves into the challenge.  It distracted them enough that nobody remarked on Greg's leisurely row where he'd normally do a heavy interval program.

He dressed with perhaps a little more care after his shower, but only Wordy was around to see it, and he just smiled and wished Greg an entirely sincere 'Have a good night, boss.'

 

He was on time, not wearing the same clothes, and acceptably rested when he got into work next day, but Ed still took one look at him and grinned. Greg gave him a very dry look.

"Boss, you can glare all you like, there's no hiding a good night."

Which was probably true, given that he couldn't keep the smile off his face for more than five minutes at a time. And he knew the team was just pleased for him. He resolved to answer any inquiries with 'It was a good night, thank you' and any further questions or remarks with an offer to expand while going over the eternal backlog of expense forms together.  


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have one reader in this fandom (hi Jebbypal!) and I don't care. This is all written, why wait...

He was woken by the sharp huff of breath, and it only took a moment to take in her tight muscles, the way her hands clenched and unclenched.

Nightmare. Okay.

He wasn't sure what kind of things gave her nightmares; she seemed largely at peace with the world and with her job in her waking time. She had been in war, but she was a Missile Guidance Systems specialist: she had never seen direct combat; had always been in the relative safety of the ships she worked on.

He'd never heard her mention anything that seemed particularly good fodder for bad dreams. Then again, he'd never talked about his own nightmare fodder either, and he most assuredly did have them sometimes.

She was mumbling 'no, no no," over and over, and he thought she might be crying. He tried to take hold of her hands, soothe her awake, but she jerked, nearly elbowing him in the face, and he took a little more distance. Reminding himself not to underestimate her.

"Grace? Gracie, this is a dream," he said, voice pitched low and soothing. "I need you to wake up now, Gracie. Come on, come on up to the surface and wake up. Gracie... Grace.."

This seemed to have no effect whatsoever, and after a minute of watching her get more upset he sighed and pulled out the one thing that never failed on anybody who'd ever been through boot camp. He sat up, giving her a little more space, and said in a sharp command tone he never used with his team, " _Gaudin_. Awake. Now."

She stilled abruptly, and he saw her eyes gleam in the low streetlight coming in through a gap in the curtains, the tear tracks on her face. She lay very still for the space of a few seconds.

"Systems down... what?" she muttered to herself, sounding disoriented and lost.

"Grace," he said quietly. "You're at my place. You're okay."

"Greg?" she sounded like he was the last person she'd expected, and he wondered what sort of mental list she was running down to help her orient herself. She'd clearly expected the drone of ship's engines, and in the absence of that, the wood-fire and fibre scents of her own home.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here, Grace. You're safe. You're at my house."

He stroked her hair, trying to help her ground herself. She turned toward him and pushed herself closer, blindly pressing her face against the skin of his side, arms going tightly around him. He felt her shudder, the way she was trying to force her breathing to slow and not quite succeeding, and put a hand in her neck, warm and comforting.

"What happened?" he asked softly, when her heartbeat wasn't pounding against his thumb anymore.

She pushed away enough that she could speak, her body suddenly rigid.

"What _happened_ is that I pushed buttons, and bombs fell on people," she said, with a tone of vehement, slow-burning anger that tilted the picture into focus for him. "Nothing _happened_ to me. _I_ \- _happened_ to other people. Fatally."

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I forget that side of your job sometimes."

"Yeah, well," she scoffed, pulling away further, shrugging off his gentle touch.

He cast around for something to say, but came up a blank. Veterans who had been on the ground, in combat, were expected to have a degree of baggage about having killed. Greg had little doubt that somebody like Sam did, carried it around with him somewhere, saw faces in his dreams.

But the Navy techs who had pushed the buttons, never seen faces - he'd never thought about how that must weigh on them, too. How the inequality of it, of not even having been there, been scared, been in danger in return, might make the weight harder to bear.

He'd ended lives over the course of his career - he didn't know how many, hadn't kept count, but he could still summon all of their faces if he put his mind to it. He'd never considered that Grace might have killed twenty times that many people without ever having had any idea of who they were.

He forced himself to stay silent, to ignore his occupational reflex to talk her down. it seemed disrespectful of her feelings, and she wasn't a danger to anybody exept her own peace of mind. He wasn't in a position to grant her forgiveness, anyway, and they both knew it.

Plus, she would probably recognise his tactics and get angry. If you weren't ready to forgive yourself you didn't want to hear forgiveness from others, if they could even give it. He knew that all too well.

"Turn over," he said instead, giving her a little push. Letting it be a command, a tone she could stand right now. She complied stiffly.

He moved into the space behind her, right up against her back. Gathered her up, one arm across both of hers, one hand in the backs of her knees to bring her legs up against her chest, tuck her into a ball. Pulled up his own knees to keep her like that, keep her compressed. Pushed his cheek against the back of her head until she let out a long, shuddering breath and yielded, tucked her chin against her chest.

It wasn't a gentle embrace, it was controlling and just a little too tight for comfort, but when she started to shiver he knew he'd read her right. He focused on his own breathing, a steady, slow rhythm that gave her something to anchor to, if she wanted, and held on.

It felt like a long time before the muscles in her neck softened, before the spastic hitches faded from her breathing. He gradually eased his hold, letting it become comforting. Hoped she could stand that now, could accept kindness. She unfolded a little, but stayed curled up where she was, and they must have fallen asleep like that, because he woke up with her still in his arms. Given that she usually got twitchy around 4:30 AM, he chose to think of that as a good sign.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of One Wrong Move.

He couldn't breathe.

Greg sat in his car, opposite the door behind which Mr and Mrs Young were now processing the fact that their son was dead. He stared through the windowshield and tried to force air into his lungs. He'd seen the team briefly - just long enough to reassure himself that they were together, that they were taking care of Spike. Then he'd gone to break the news.

The momentum of the day had kept him going, kept him on track to sort out the next thing, and the next, but he stuttered to a halt now, too drained to figure out what came next or push himself any more.

He dialled her number without even really knowing what he was doing.

"Hi Greg."

There was a burning ember in his throat.  
"Hey."

"Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm--I.. today was.." Greg hesitated, pushed himself to just say something, anything. "No... no, not really."

Massive understatement, but it was the best he could do right now. It was a start, and he trusted her to hear what he couldn't choke out.

"Anything I can do?"

"Can you just..." he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, clearing his vision. "Could you just talk for a while?"

"Want me to tell you about my day?" she sounded like maybe she was smiling a little.

"Yeah," he sighed, finally putting the car into gear and driving away. "Yes, that would be nice."

"Well, I woke up at 4:30, read a bit and actually managed to fall asleep again, so we'll call that a win in the 'adjusting to civilian rhythms' column. I had breakfast in my pyjamas just because I could.." she began. "You really want to hear this?"

He made an affirmative sound.

"I booked flights to visit my family, then I called them and spent about an hour being passed around from person to person so that everybody could tell me about all the things they'd like me to bring when I visit. So now I have a shopping trip to look forward to, where I look for things like 'that one spice that Unna used to put in the stew that smells kind of yellow and sharp.'. So that's an expedition to look forward to," she sounded fondly amused. "And I'm still getting to know my new wheel. I tried spinning baby bison today, which involved a certain amount of cursing.."

"It always feels so peaceful when you spin," he said quietly. It was one of his favourite things of spending time at her place. Those moments when they were not talking, just spending time together. He reading or watching her crappy television with the sound low, she working on her wheel. The sound of it and the hypnotic rhythm of feet and hands.

"Well, it wasn't peaceful today, but I've got the hang of it now," she said. Hesitated, and finally asked, "where are you?"

"On my way home." And not looking forward to arriving. Because God, God, _Lew_. The last thing he needed right now was to be alone with his thoughts in his empty house. There were times when the space where his son ought to be was so present that he could hardly stand it. Times, after bad jobs, that he needed whatever he could find to fill the emptiness. He didn't drink anymore, but sometimes, he really, _really_ wanted to.

Nights like these he took a detour just so he wouldn't drive past anywhere that sold booze.

"Want to come here?" she asked softly. "Or I could come to you. You don't need to entertain me, I can just.. be there."

He forced down the reflex that said she couldn't see him like this, that he needed to be together and normal so he could be the boyfriend she wanted.

The one _he thought_ she wanted - but just because he recognised his own faulty thinking pattern didn't make it easier to dismiss.

"Would you?" he finally said, a little hoarsely.

"Of course. Hey... hey, Greg?"

"Yeah?"

"You can ask for this. You can _have_ this," she said with a gentle voice that seemed to squeeze his throat shut. "You _know_ that, right? I like being strong for you sometimes too."

He tried to swallow the burning lump in his throat and focused on traffic for a bit, not wanting to have a breakdown right here in the car, in the middle of traffic, on the phone with her. Luckily she didn't seem to expect an answer.

"I'm gonna stay on the line while I get ready, okay?"

He knew she was worried, this was her careful voice, but he was too grateful to be embarrassed about causing that tone of voice. He knew his limits, and he was there, he was right there.

He'd never explicitly told her about the alcohol thing, but she was observant, had probably recognised the patterns. 'Alcohol is a problem where I grew up. Long dark winters, you know,' she'd said once. That, and he suspected that she'd witnessed plenty of colleagues ruin their lives with shore-leave excesses.

He, in turn, had noticed the only alcohol in her house was an old bottle of cooking sherry that she never used when they ate together. He wasn't usually so close to the edge that he couldn't handle other people drinking a beer, or meat prepared with a sherry marinade (it made the house smell of alcohol, but sherry had never been his poison), but he appreciated the care, the way she made it a non-issue.

"Yeah," he managed. "Yeah, please."

He heard a beep and some shuffling as she switched her phone to bluetooth headset, but she didn't talk much except to ask if his oven worked. He could hear her move through her poky flat, packing some things into a bag. She had toiletries and some spare clothes at his place these days, though he'd firmly resisted the urge to re-open the cohabitation conversation.

He concentrated on traffic, the sound of her breathing in his ear. Something heavy in his chest was easing off at the way she'd offered to come over, as if it was no disappointment, no burden, that he was not his usual self.

He heard her start her car, grumbling about neighbours who couldn't park for shit. Then the car radio came on, an album she'd enthused over, and he smiled a little despite himself when she sang along under her breath.

 _lightbringer_   
_tamer of night_   
_blossom of hours unleashed_   
_make me a lawbender_   
_all equalized_   
_saved from the chill and heat_   
_your power flows through me transformed_   
_here’s where I was born_

She'd told him about the silvery ice expanse of Great Slave Lake where she'd grown up. Of a sky so big it seemed to swallow everything. Of the mountains in the distance, of the family bison ranch and of forging through chest-deep snow with her brothers to get more wood for the bread oven. Of the tiny communities and long winters, of how she had wanted nothing more than to get out of there and had longed for it ever since.

He hoped that one day she'd take him there, that she would share it with him.

He pulled up into his driveway and turned off the engine, but couldn't quite bring himself to move, to get out and open his front door and feel how empty the house was. To let the silence of the house give his mind opportunity to replay the sound of the explosion, over and over again.

The only way he knew how to cope was to open a bottle, and that just wasn't happening. So he just sat in his car, listening to her driving and singing. Picturing how she was coming closer, how she would be there soon.

He could hear her turn into his street, because the second hand car she'd bought was not.. not the most sound vehicle to ever grace the streets of Toronto. He was not a fan, because he had images of her standing by the side of the road in the freezing cold, but she'd insisted she was technical enough to deal with any problems. In her own words, being able to fix your own snowmobile had been a vital skill in her childhood. He wanted her to have a better car, but he was well aware he didn't have veto power in her life. She'd just sell it again before her next tour, so he could understand the approach.

 _Don't think about her next deployment,_ he told himself firmly. It was three months away, and there was absolutely no point to torturing himself about her absence while she was right there.

She got out of her car, and did a double take when she spotted him still in his car. He heard the sound of her disconnecting the phone. He grimaced as she opened his car door, because he felt like a trainwreck and he didn't like being seen that way.

"Hey," she said softly. She searched his face for a moment, then leaned in to kiss him, light and soft. He turned toward her, hugged her, trying not to hold on too tight.

"Can we go inside?" she asked after a minute. "My bread dough is going to suffer if it gets cold."

He huffed a chuckle at that very practical reason, and got out of his car. She handed him a big, wrapped bowl that smelled of yeast, and pulled a backpack and her craft bag out of her own car.

The house was... it was dark and empty, but only for a few moments. She left her boots at the front door and went around pulling curtains shut and turning on lights. Then she came to take the bowl from him and went to the kitchen.

There was something soothing about watching her move around his house on her own, comfortable in a way she hadn't been early on, when she had seemed to want his assent for opening every kitchen cupboard. Now she seemed at home, and it was a relief not to have to host her. He heard her fill the kettle and set out cups. Tea was a priority, he'd learned that much.

He dropped down on the couch, in the corner where he could look into the open kitchen. When she'd put the dough near the heater and made tea, she came into the living.

"I can just be here, if you like, and you just do your thing?" she seemed hesitant, and his heart ached.

"Come here."

She came into his arms easily, and he pulled her in and tucked his face into her neck, burying his nose in her long hair. It spelled of the spicy shampoo she used, underlaid with warm skin and the familiar, comforting smell of the fibres she'd been working with.

"Sorry to - I should have--" he choked out, muffled against her skin. "It's not.. not fair to you to -- oh God, we couldn't save him." He felt like he was suffocating. "We knew it and he knew it and I had to - had to make the decision and - it was all so fucked up, and then I ask you to come over when I'm a wreck, and--"

"Don't be sorry for calling me," she said softly, hand cupping the back of his head. He had seen how strong her hands were, and he let himself lean into that touch, solid and protective. "I am here - for _you_. Do you understand that? Stop worrying about my feelings. Here for you. Not for me. Not to be entertained, or wined and dined, or romanced. Right now I'm here because you thought that might make you feel better. If there's something else you think might help you feel better, then tell me and we'll do that. Do you copy?"

 _I like being strong for you sometimes too_ , he remembered. He liked taking care of her while she decompressed from on-board life; liked being wanted and needed that way, if he was honest. He just needed to trust that she liked taking care of him in return, that it was not a burden just like the reverse was not a burden to him.

"Yeah," he finally managed against the damp skin of her neck, voice choked and painful. "Yeah, I copy."

"Good," she said softly. "You ever been outside just before a thunderstorm? When you can smell the ozone, and your hair stands on end?" she stroked a hand over his milimetered hair and smiled, "well, I guess not that last for you. But there's a charge building, and you can feel it, right? Your chest gets tight and you feel breathless and you're all just waiting for it to hit somewhere." She was speaking softly, not expecting answers - her storyteller voice. He let himself sink into the sound of it, the steady cadence.

"This is that. Like a squall at sea, like a big storm building, and you just have to stop bracing against it. You have to let it hit, let it discharge itself. Huddle into your coat and let it roll through, let it rage itself out. And it doesn't mean it stops hurting, that there's never going to be another storm... But it means you can breathe again.."

Her voice broke a little, and he realised he was clutching her hard against his chest, was crying into her neck. Her hand made slow passes on his back, and after a while the world somehow seemed a little less wrong.

(Except it _wasn't_ , and wouldn't be, for a long time to come - because he'd lost a bright young man, a member of his team-family-team, a man whose growth and development he'd taken pride in, a man he'd called 'son,' casual and warm like the word belonged on his lips - and he'd lost enough people over the years to know how grief worked. But she wasn't wrong either, the crushing pressure on his chest was easing off.)

An indeterminable amount of time later he pulled away, covering his eyes with one hand. His head ached, and he was fighting the embarrassment of having cried on her. It was a relief when she got up and left him on the couch. She brought him a glass of water and a wet washcloth, kissed him lightly on the lips, and went to the kitchen to bake her bread, giving him space to compose himself.

He stretched out, oriented so he could see her when he opened his eyes, and just laid there, listening to her move around.

She was singing - she was always singing - what he thought was a home song in bastard French. He felt a wash of affection for how she wasn't fazed by big emotions, how she could let things roll through her. Maybe he could lean on her a little, sometimes, without feeling like he weighed her down.

 

His phone rang,

"Hey Eddie." Christ, his voice sounded wrecked.

"Greg," Ed said, and Greg could hear him try to analyse his tone and his breathing, looking for any evidence of coping or not coping and whether or not either version involved alcohol. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm... yeah. Will be."

"Sophie's decided tonight is Mario Kart Tournament night, so if you want to come..." Ed dangled invitingly.

Bless Sophie and her great big heart.

"I'm not sitting here alone, I promise," he said. "Grace is here."

"Oh, you called her? Good," Ed sounded pleased at this deviation from routine, which admittedly involved Greg sitting alone in his dark empty house and Ed dragging him home to his place.

"How are the others?" Because Ed would have checked in with all of them before calling Greg.

"Spike's not answering, but I called his mother and she says he's there."

Spike was probably the least okay of them all, but he was with his family, who would be sure to keep a close eye. It was about the best that could be expected right now.

"Wordy's getting the stuffing hugged out of him by Shelley and the girls," Ed said. "Jules was rattling around her house, but she's on her way to my place now."

"Uh oh, Mario Kart with Miss Competitive," Greg said mindlessly, then grimaced. For half a second there he'd forgotten exactly why they were having this conversation, and why Jules was going to spend the night at Ed's place. "And Sam?"

"Said he was going to the range and that he wanted to be alone, but will call if he changes his mind," Ed said.

"Okay. Thank you."

He could almost _hear_ Ed's eyeroll. Looking after the team like this wasn't something he wanted to be thanked for.

"Tell Sophie thanks," Greg said. "And Ed? This is why I sometimes boot you out to go home and spend time with your family. Because they deserve to have you, too."

"Yeah, yeah," Ed mock-grumbled. "Whatever. Go and hug your girlfriend."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That song is [Landsailor](http://viennateng.bandcamp.com/track/landsailor-feat-glen-phillips), by Vienna Teng. [Her new album (Aims)](http://viennateng.bandcamp.com/album/aims) has been on repeat in my house for 5 days straight now.


	5. Chapter 5

It had been a bad day's work. Not the kind of horrifyingly bad that lead to mandatory psych evals and Ed checking in with everybody in the evening, but just plain run of the mill bad. The kind of job where there had been no good outcomes, no matter how much they'd looked for them.

The atmosphere in the locker room was downright dour, and Greg looked around and made a split second decision.

"Gentlemen, we are going for a drink," he announced. They looked up in surprise - that was not an announcement they were used to getting from him. He'd avoided bars for a long time after he'd quit drinking, and even now he could handle the environment it was usually Ed who initiated these things and Greg who went along for an hour or so. Especially since Grace had come back from deployment and he'd started spending most of his evenings with her. 

"You heard me," he said, just enough command to his tone to make them snap back into motion.

"Yes boss!" Ed grinned.

Greg went into the hallway, his boots still unlaced, to pound on the women's changing room.

"Five minutes, ladies - we're going for a drink!" he called through the door.

"Aye aye, sir!" Jules called back, her tone surprised and amused.

 

"Didn't you have plans?" Ed asked when he came back in.

"Not of the planned variety," he shrugged. He'd intended to go over to Grace's place, but odds were good they would just watch a movie or something. She would understand.

 _Sorry, raincheck tonight. Bad job today, team needs some aftercare_ , he texted her. It was a recent discovery that she didn't actually like talking on the phone very much, it was just the best option while she was at sea. For things like this, she was perfectly happy with a text message.

 _OK, no problem. Have fun (? or should I say take care?) *grizzlyhugs*_ he got back a few minutes later.

 

Leah, still new enough that this was her first time out with the whole team, watched with wide eyes as Greg put plates of pie on the table.

"Don't we get weighed every week?"

"You can run it off tomorrow," Greg said magnanimously. "Sometimes, pie is important." He distributed the beers and sat down.

"To better days," he said, raising his glass of coke. "And to Lew."

The others murmured their agreement as they toasted.

"Ah yes, the training scenario," Ed said, stopping them from dwelling. "Lots of running around, you say? You dreamt this one up with Roley, right?"

Greg maintained his expression of mild amusement while the team speculated about what the training would involve. Jules, getting hit a little harder by her beer than the rest, put in "alligators!" and then they were off toward progressively weirder training ideas.

At the point where Spike suggested an alien abduction scenario, Greg pulled out his notebook and pretended to make notes, which only spurred on the creativity.

 

Two hours later they were all distinctly more relaxed than they'd been to start with, people slouching in the booth. The bad day hadn't been forgotten, but it had been pushed back a little, been put on the shelf with some of the other crap days.

Wordy had switched to soda after one beer, and was the first to get up. If he wanted to see his youngest before she went to bed he'd need to leave now. Ed, who carpooled with him, was unsubtly elbowed out of the booth by Jules, who was probably the only one who could get away with it.

"Jesus, do I need to start wearing kevlar if I sit next to you?" he groused. Not drunk, but not quite sober either. Wordy executed a sneaky tactical manoeuvre to get him un-stuck from the table, and they headed out with friendly waves.  

 

Greg stuck around, bought the others another beer. He briefly considered leaving the younger members of the team to bond, but the agreement with Grace was that cancelling was okay, but that was it for the night. She didn't like the uncertainty of 'maybe later' and would have found something else to occupy her. And he was getting some interesting insight into his team here, especially in how Spike was coping. Still raw from Lew's death - it had only been five weeks, to some extent they all were - but he was actually talking about his friend now, telling them all a story about the holiday they'd taken together. Given that at first Spike hadn't wanted to even mention Lew around Leah, Greg thought this was good.

Of course, Spike and Jules knew him well enough to not let him get away with sitting quietly and observing them.  

"And you, sarge. Ever want a pet?" Jules asked, after a lengthy discussion about if a turtle would make a suitable pet for her.

"I've always liked the idea of a dog," he said thoughtfully. "I just can't see how that would work in my life. Doesn't seem fair."

"Isn't your girlfriend home a lot?" Leah asked, with a cautious tone of not-sure-I-should-bring-this-up.

"She is now, but she's in the Navy - she'll redeploy in a couple of months," Greg said kindly. Leah was too new to have been there for that chapter, and he really needed to stop treating his relationship as a military secret. He'd never wanted them to know when he was dating, but this was different. This was coming up to the point where the next time there was a team-and-family thing, he might ask if she wanted to come.

"That's rough."

"Might be her last one though," he added, not wanting to focus on the impending separation. "She's coming up on her 20 years in service."

"So that dog might happen then?" Sam suggested.

"It's something to think about," he said noncommittally.

And something to talk about. He wasn't sure why they hadn't done that yet, why they didn't talk about the future. Was it that she thought of the relationship as temporary, or that she wasn't sure if he did? Maybe the looming 10 month separation was the kind of roadblock it was hard to look ahead of.

Or maybe he hadn't dared to dream of a future that wasn't him alone in his empty house.

 

The conversation moved on to Leah's pet snake, which she insisted made a great pet.

"It's affectionate! It likes coiling around my wrist and just hanging out!"

"That's because it thinks your wrist is prey!" Spike retorted.

Jules and Leah were laughing so hard they were drawing looks from the rest of the bar, and Greg felt his cheeks ache a little from grinning so much.

 


	6. Chapter 6

The smell hit him the moment he stepped out of the lift on her floor. Bread, bacon and honey, and a myriad of other smells he couldn't separate but which drew him to take a deep breath.

She didn't open the door, but she knew he was coming and he had a key, so he let himself in.

He found her at her small dining table. She had on a tank top and a flour-stained black apron with some kind of 'Hells Kitchen Angel' logo. Her hair was twisted up into a haphazard coil and held in place with two pencils. She was sitting with her back to him at the table, which was covered in baking sheets full of small bread-things.

"I'm just saying," she gestured with a half eaten one in her hand, "the honey is awesome, but I'm not sure the stickiness wouldn't be a problem."

It took Greg a moment to realise she was talking to her laptop, which was set up in a skype session with a woman with a deep tan and a pirate style bandana.

"Especially the heather honey. All hail the heather honey."

She stuffed the remaining piece of the bread thing into her mouth, and Greg couldn't help but smile at how animated she was.

"Chick, there's a man in your house," the other woman said.

"Oh, that'll be--" she turned around, eyes lit up. "Hi Greg! I'm helping Vicks here pick recipes for her cooking book."

Her glasses were perched on her head, and there was flour in her hair from where she'd repeatedly put them on and off. Mindful of the audience, he kept his kiss to a chaste press of lips, though it took an effort. Sometimes she was so fucking endearing he didn't know what to do with her.

"Hello Vicky, I'm Greg Parker."

"Oh, I've heard _all_ about you," the woman said, making Grace roll her eyes and blush. "Nice to finally see you in the digital flesh. Gracie and I used to sail together."

"What kind of cooking book are you writing? These look great," he said, looking over the selection of bread things. Most of them looked like types of filling wrapped in dough, which had risen to open the 'envelope' a little, showcasing the filling appealingly.

"Oh, oh, he's about to play test subject," Grace grinned. "Go on, pick one."

He leaned down, taking in the scent of the various batches, then realised her weird sensory habits were rubbing off onto him. She was always smelling food before she ate it. He selected one that smelled mostly of bacon, and bit down.

Bacon with a hint of maple syrup, enveloped in a crusty whole-wheat bread. He made an involuntary sound of enjoyment. Grace clapped a hand over her mouth in a wholly ineffective attempt to hide her laugh, and he threw her a stern glare.

She made the big brown eyes expression of 'who, me?' innocence that was completely fake and still always got to him.

"Very nice," Greg summarised his findings, after he'd finished the thing. "The maple syrup is just right in strength."

"Thank you, test subject three-seven," Vicky grinned at him, then, to Grace, "I'll leave you to your... _testing_ , chick. Let me know what you conclude."

Grace rolled her eyes at the webcam and disconnected the call. Greg made use of the privacy by kissing her thoroughly.

"Hi," she said dazedly when he broke the kiss. That was always gratifying.

"Hi," he said, sitting down in the chair next to her, turned toward her. "What army are you planning to feed these to?"

"Going to take some for the volunteers at the animal shelter tomorrow," she said. "It's cage scrub day." Then, sounding less certain, "You could take some to the station?"

"I could do that," he nodded.

"Will that not be... weird?" She made a vague gesture, "Like, weirdly Stepford Wives 'I baked things for your coworkers' weird?" she grimaced. "I'm always kind of worried that people think I'm trying to bribe them into liking me."

"My only concern is that they will all disappear so fast you will have no data about which ones people like best," Greg said. Then he replayed the second part of what she'd said.

"They already like you, you know."

"I've only met you and Kevin Wordsworth," she pointed out.

"Well, he liked you. And I believe the reasoning is 'She makes you smile, therefore she is a good thing."

"I make you smile, huh?"

"Sometimes. A little." he lied. "Apparently markedly more than I used to."

'You're sleeping better and smiling more' was what Ed had said, with enough approval that Greg had found it hard to be annoyed at the intrusion, at knowing Ed kept track of how many mornings he turned up bleary eyed and unrested.

She hummed in acknowledgement, putting the bread things in plastic food containers.

"They'd like to meet you, I think," he said, not quite sure if this was something she was up for. She had distinct comfort zones where she was confident and outgoing, but she could also be downright shy. Maybe growing up in an isolated community did that to you; she'd referred to herself as 'poorly socialised' once. He wasn't sure on where 'my team wants to meet you' fell.

"You could drop by the station sometime, then you can make it as long or short as you're comfortable with," he said, trying to gauge how she felt about that. "Or you can wait until Ed organises a barbeque. Or," he added quickly, "you can just not do it. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't feel like you have to."

"I could pick you up sometime at the end of a day?" she suggested slowly. "I mean, each in our own car. There's that East-African restaurant we were going to try."

"That works," he smiled. "If you're enjoying yourself talking to the guys we can hang around for a bit, if not then we have an excuse to leave after a few minutes."

She turned to him and rose on tiptoes to kiss him, keeping her flour-covered hands well away from his shirt.  
"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For... for letting me do it at my comfort level," she smiled at him.

"Are you worried about it?"

"It's intimidating. They've known you a lot longer than I have, they're close like family, and they're protective."

"Fair enough," he nodded. He was just glad it was shyness, maybe some concern about their approval that made her hesitate, not doubts about their relationship. He supposed it sort of was the equivalent of meeting a partner's parents. "It'll be fine, you'll see."

 


	7. Chapter 7

"Fuck, I need a bigger helmet, so I can wear a beanie under it," Ed complained, stomping snow off his boots before he came into the command truck.

It was one of the first real snow storms of the season. The force 8 wind was sending the sharp, icy flakes horizontally through the air. Not a day he regretted working from the truck.

"Hey, that's my helmet, Mr Lane," Greg said, reaching out just the fraction of a second too late. Ed already had his hands on it.

"Yours is bigger, I'm just gonna - oh-ho, what's this?"

He had it turned up and held it closer to the light, examining the soft helmet liner. It was a dark brown, fine-knit and fitted perfectly to the inside of the helmet.

"Grace make you this?"

She'd asked what type of helmet he used, and he'd given her the serial code. Presumably she'd looked up the specs online. It wasn't really a surprise when she'd said 'Oh hey, I made you something' and dropped it into his lap, because he'd known she was working on something, but he was pleased with it. His head has never been this warm and comfortable in the helmet.

"Yeah. Could ask her to make one for you too," Greg said absently, scrolling through the information Winnie had just sent through.

"I don't know boss, I haven't even met her yet. I don't think that would go over well. What do you say, Wordy?"

Wordy just closed the truck door behind him, pulling off his gloves and blowing on his fingers. Ed tossed him the helmet.

He examined the fine-knit liner, eyebrows rising.

"Nothing spells 'I care about you' like a hand spun, hand knit helmet liner, that's what I say," he said. "There's some serious work in this."

"Christ Wordy, have you taken up knitting now?" Greg groused.

"My mother knits. You better believe I appreciate the amount of effort that goes into something like this."

"Still think I should ask her for one?" Ed grinned at Greg. "Because Boss, a woman makes you a gift like this, I don't think she means 'Oh sure, it was nothing, I'll make one for all your colleagues too.'"

"Thank you for your opinion on my relationship, Mr Lane," Greg said dryly.

"Always, boss," Ed grinned toothily.

"What is this, the Command Truck Convention?" Spike groused, shaking snow off his coat as he climbed in.

"Spike, catch," Ed said, throwing him the helmet.

"Why are you--oh, hey. Comfy. Please tell me we're all getting issued these?" Spike said.

"Somebody gives you that as a gift, what does that say about the giver?"

"They're either already family, or you ought to make them family ASAP," Spike said immediately. "That's not an 'I want you to wear something I made' gift, that's an 'I just want your head to be warm and safe' gift."

"As I was saying..." Ed trailed off meaningfully. "When do we get to meet her?"

"Out, the lot of you," Greg rolled his eyes. 

"Fine, fine." The three men trooped out, and Greg was left looking at the helmet Spike had put back down, drumming his fingers on the desk.

Yes, he'd appreciated the gift for something that had taken time and effort and fit his needs exactly. But he hadn't thought to look at it as a message. She had a lot of time on her hands when she was on leave; she volunteered in a school reading program and at the animal shelter, but apart from that she was almost always spinning and knitting. Half the projects he never saw finished, or wasn't sure if she made multiples or it was one thing taking a long time.

He'd once asked if she was stuck on a hat pattern - she'd seemingly been working on it for weeks without progress - and she'd laughed and shown him the eleven hats she'd made in that time. He just kept seeing the same stage. Her family sold handmade products, and there was a regular package exchange of fibre and finished handknit items.  

As far as he knew, her branch of the family up North handled the fibre side of the business, and spinning and knitting was what she'd grown up with. He'd always thought of it as something she did because it occupied her and made her feel at home, maybe help her family out a bit.  

Now he thought of it, something completely handmade that was never intended to be seen, only to keep a cop's bald head warm - maybe, yeah. Maybe he should have examined that a little closer.

She'd described herself as a 'from a long line of makers,' and her reaction whenever he made an effort cooking for the two them was something he maybe should have paid more attention to. Perhaps this was her language, her way of saying things she didn't use words for.

* * *

 

They were sitting by the fire in her place one night, enjoying the glow of the last embers in a sort of drowsy inertia. She'd already changed into her sleeping clothes, a tank top and long bottoms, and she had a knit blanket loosely pulled around her shoulders.

"Can you explain to me about.. making? handmaking?"

She tilted her head in surprise, as if she wasn't sure what he was asking.

"What it means to you?"

Her eyebrows rose like she'd never even considered that question.

"You told me your family are Makers," he prompted, dropping in the emphasis like she had done.

"Oh. Right. Well, I told you about the bison empire, right?"

"You told me your family has bison and that your parents handle most of the fibre."

"Okay, well, there's about seventy people. Fluctuates a bit. Going away to college isn't so unusual anymore, other people marry into the tribe, there are five generations living there now."

He settled in and pulled her feet into his lap, cupping his hands around them, warming them.

"There's nineteen houses, but only eight of those can be lived in year round. You can imagine it gets cramped in winter, and as soon as thaw has set in, the younger couples are itching to move back into the summer houses."

He made an encouraging sound, trying to keep her going.

"My mother's oldest brother runs the cattle side of the operation. His kids and their kids all help, and some times of year, everybody pitches in. Right now is the end of slaughter time, which is why I don't visit this time of year."

She wrinkled her nose.

"I'm not squeamish, but I don't fancy spending a visit elbow deep in entrails, either. Anyway, some of the winter houses have workshops attached. My parents' house is next to the bakery, and my father is the family baker, though I think my brother handles most of it now."

He supposed that explained why 'home' meant the smell of baking bread to her.

"The rest of us did.. do.. the fibre side of the operation, and we use the fibre workshop for cleaning, scouring, washing, dehairing, and carding fibre before it is brought into the house to be spun and then knit or woven. There's also the slaughterhouse, the butchery, the tannery, the leather workshop - my aunt makes the most amazing boots - and there's a stock building where two of my cousins run the webshop from. But..." she searched for words, glancing up at him as if she wasn't sure what he was looking for. "but we just make stuff. If there is such a thing as family culture, then that's ours. Make stuff. From bison."

"Did your aunt make your boots too?" They were knee high, bison leather with the hair turned inward. Hand stitched. They were old, had been repaired multiple times, but they were without a doubt her favourite winter boots.

"Yes."

"Were they a gift?"

She nodded. "When I moved away from home."

Hell of a gift.

"If she had found them in a shop and bought them for you, would you like them as much?"

She gave him a puzzled look.  
"She made them specifically for me, she took footprints."

He mentally adjusted the monetary price of that gift upward.

"Just imagine it was possible she'd bought them? Would it be the same?"

"If they were the same boots, I would wear them as much, I suppose."

"But would it be different?"

"Of course. My aunt made them. Every time I put them on, I'm reminded that she cares about me and wants me to have warm feet, wherever I am."

Now he was getting to the bit he really needed to understand.

"And when you make something for somebody, is that the same?"

She gave him a puzzled look, as if she didn't understand why he was even asking this.

"When you make something, you put something of yourself into it."  

He reached out and hauled her close to sit sideways in his lap. She went easily, letting him move her as he wished.

"So explain this to me," he said, leaning his chin on her shoulder. "Why do you downplay it when you give me something you've made for me?"

She tensed a little, and he thought he saw a flash of... guilt? Unease?

He leaned back against the couch and waited. She moved with him, leaning against his chest, though she was still tense.

"Look, I don't-- it doesn't--"

She fell silent again.

After a minute he kissed her bare arm, and, not getting a reaction, took a page out of her playbook and bit down. Not hard, more of a nip on her bicep, but she jolted to attention with a startled laugh.

"Hey. Come on, just say what you can," he urged gently, pressing a kiss to the slight teeth marks he'd just made. "Let out some words."

She let out a long breath.

"I just don't.. I don't _get_ the gift thing here, okay? I can never figure out if things are too much or not enough."

He wondered if 'here' was Toronto, or the south in general, or western culture, or just plain anybody outside of her own family. She'd said that her family heritage was a mixed bag of First Nation and Metis, with regular input from western people ever since they had first arrived up there, and more than half for the last few generations. There wasn't one consistent, unifying culture beyond 'family culture'.

"Some people like handmade things even if they're terrible. Some people think you're being cheap..." she gave a helpless shrug. "There must be some class they teach you in high school, and they left it out of my distance learning curriculum."

"So when you downplay things to me..." he prompted, trying to keep her on subject.

"It's... not that long ago since you still sounded like all of this was temporary. I didn't want to make you feel pressured."

He toppled them sideways onto the couch, curling around her, and she snuggled into him.

"I really like the helmet liner, and I like it even better knowing what it means to you to make something for somebody," he said softly.  

He made a promise to himself to cook for them more often, because this concept definitely also applied to making food. He might not have the kind of answers and promises for her that he wanted to have, but he could try to speak her language a little more often.

 


	8. Chapter 8

"Sergeant?" Winnie called. "There's a Ms Gaudin here to see you?"

"One sec, I'm coming," he answered, closing the training files he was looking at. The others were still in the gym, but he'd clocked out early to shower and change before she arrived. He'd told them - well, it had been pried out of him - that he was going out to eat with Grace. He just hadn't told them she was coming to the station, because for some things, less plotting time for the team was definitely better.

She was standing by the reception desk, bouncing on the balls of her feet with what he thought was restless energy, maybe a touch of nerves. She didn't really do dressing up; the leggings, thigh-length knit tunic (or was it a dress?) and tall fur-lined boots were as fancy as he ever saw her. It still gave him a thrill to see her in it; formfitting and appealing without being aggressively sexy.

"Hey," he couldn't help but smiling, and kissed her lightly in greeting. "You look nice."

"So this is Grace," Ed said from behind him, and she couldn't quite hold back her startled twitch.

"We were going to come to the gym to say hello, Eddie," Greg said reprovingly. "No need to sneak around like you caught us."

He shot Winnie a look, because Ed was still wearing his workout clothes and had his phone in his hand; she'd obviously texted him. She gave him an apologetic grimace, as if to say ' _Sorry boss, but you know how he is_ '.

"Just wondering why you've been hiding her from us," Ed shrugged. Then addressed her directly, holding out his hand. "Ed Lane. Team leader."

After a split second of hesitation she stepped forward to shake his hand.

"Grace Gaudin."

Ed stepped a little closer and gave her a long, assessing look; the kind of look he usually used for new potential team members and people he wanted to get a rise out of, and Greg felt the temperature drop about ten degrees.

 _Crap_.

She was normally fairly expressive, but now the animation had faded from her face, leaving behind a cordially blank expression to match Ed's.

"Rest of the team wants to meet you," he said after a moment of cool silence. He turned away, expecting them to follow him. Greg put his hand in the small of her back to guide her, but she quickened a pace, letting the touch slide off.

He caught himself thinking in terms of de-escalation measures. There'd never been any guarantee that she would like his team, but he'd never been concerned about that possibility; he'd always thought she would fit in fine with the group. He'd pictured her next to him at the next team barbeque. He still could - he had no idea what just happened. He was also pretty sure there was no way he could step in without making it look like he didn't think she could handle meeting the team.

"Guys, this is Grace Gaudin. Bosses' girlfriend. She of the long absences."

Wordy was at the weight station closest to the door, and he put the bar into the stands to come and greet her.

"Nice to see you again. How is shore life treating you?"

"Oh, it's good," she said, a little stiffly. "Five months on land always seem to go much faster than five at sea."

"I can imagine," Wordy nodded, sounding just slightly puzzled. He picked the weight bar back up as Jules came up to introduce herself.

"Huh, you're not what I imagined," Jules said after a long look.

Grace's expression went a little more bland, if that was possible, and then thankfully Leah broke in.

"I really liked the bread snacks," she said earnestly, offering her hand, and Grace seemed to unfreeze a little.

Sam came up next.

"Sam Braddock. You're in the Navy? What do you do?"

"I'm a PO1. Missile Guidance Systems."

"Where've you been?"

"APOLLO, then CTF 150 missions. Afghanistan, Somalia."

"You been on the ground in Afghanistan?"

She shook her head.  
"I usually get flown in via Bahrain." She tilted her head, assessing him in a way that reminded Greg uncannily of Ed. "JTF2?"

"Yeah. Special Forces."

"Glad you made it back okay," she said, sounding like she meant it.

Spike was listening in, and as soon as the conversation stalled he jumped in, wanting to know what sort of remote control systems she worked with, and had she ever done any robotics?

Greg had never been quite this grateful for Spike's talent for either missing or completely disregarding the mood in a room, because he could see Grace thawing out by degrees, getting dragged into a technical conversation despite her reservations.

Greg observed for a few minutes, then interrupted to remind her of their restaurant reservation.

"Are you satisfied, Mr Lane?" Greg asked mildly, while she and Spike rounded off their conversation. "Can I take her to dinner now without you pretending like you're a parent catching us sneaking around?"

"Yeah, I'm satisfied," Ed said, punching up the pace of the treadmill. "How about you, Wordy?"

"No objections," Wordy said.

"Good, good. Sam? Jules? Leah? Are you satisfied the Sarge is no longer sneaking around on us?"

He received affirmative answers from them too, and turned back to Greg. "We're satisfied you're not hiding us like dirty secrets, boss. Have a good evening."

"Thank you," Greg said blandly.

"It was good to meet you all," Grace said to the team, which got polite replies of a similar nature. Greg said goodbye with a reminder of the warrant they'd be serving first thing in the morning, and walked out with her.

 


	9. Chapter 9

"Soo..." Jules said into the silence. "Hands up if you thought the boss was dating some sweet maternal lady."

She, Leah and Sam put up their hands.

"I mean, she baked us things," Leah said. "Tasty things."

Spike hesitated. Ed shrugged as he ran, waved his hand up in agreement.

"Just didn't seem like the same person he's mentioned," he said, taking a sip from his water bottle.

"She's a PO1 - that's equivalent to a staff sergeant," Sam said. "Probably runs the weapons control room when she's working, or near enough. Don't think she appreciated the implication that she had to fulfil our expectations."

"She has no authority here," Jules said. "And I didn't think the boss was the type to date somebody who would assume his authority would carry over to her."

"I don't think that was it," Sam said, then let it go. Maybe he was just more used to people who couldn't really separate their military self from their civilian persona.

"She was really different when she was alone with the boss," Wordy finally put in. "And he seems happier now she's back."

"No argument about that," Ed said, picking up the pace. "And that's what matters."

* * *

 

They went in separate cars, and she took her time on the drive over. Stalling, he suspected. He waited in his parked car, still not entirely sure what had happened. She'd seemed like a wholly different person than the Grace he spent so much time with.

She was quiet in the restaurant, not nearly as interested in the menu as she had professed herself beforehand. Greg let her stew for a bit. Pushing her to open up rarely got him anywhere.

"Well, that didn't go as I had hoped it would," he finally sighed, after they'd ordered. She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her folded hands, a posture he filed away as 'I'm ready to talk now'.

He kept silent, not wanting to push his perception of the encounter.

"Hey, stop with the 'professional listener' crap," she frowned at him, tapping her foot against his.

"I'm sorry. How had you hoped it would go?"

"I know Ed is your friend. I had hoped we could at least get on."

"I think you kind of... caught each other's sharp edges, there," he said, considering.

She scoffed.  
"You don't say. Apparently that 'let's see what you're made of' look doesn't bring out the best in me. And I fucking hate being loomed over."

"Do you get that a lot?"

She shrugged, but that was a yes.

"Pretty much every time I get new guys on my team," she said after a silence. "Urgh, sorry, it was kind of reflexive. Not how I wanted this to go."

"If it helps, I doubt Ed is feeling great about this encounter." He offered carefully. Not that he thought Ed was beating himself up, but he knew his friend had been willing to like her just for his sake. This probably wasn't how he'd intended for things to go.

Ed liked to push for a reaction. He'd just been counting on an entirely different one than he'd gotten.

Actually, the few times she'd come up in conversation there had been mention of quiet time by the fire and possibly even knitting. Greg had probably made her sound like an entirely sedate, domestic woman, so maybe the expectations thing wasn't surprising.

The food came, and the conversation drifted into other subjects, though it came back to the really good food a lot. He could tell she hadn't let the team thing go, but she would return to it when she was ready.

Which apparently was when they'd gotten to the post meal coffee.

"Can I have his number?"

Huh.

"You want Ed's number?"

"Yeah." She was all in all-systems-go mode, all focus and decisiveness. "You can read what I text him, if you want."

He pulled up Ed's number on his own phone and showed it to her. She messed with her phone for a minute, then showed him.

_Got your number from G. We don't need to be friends, but I'd feel better knowing we can reach each other if shit >fan, so here's mine. - Grace_

She'd already sent it, and he understood she was keeping him in the loop, not asking for approval. He could appreciate that - he didn't really want to have to broker a peace. A few minutes later there was a reply.

_Fair enough. Noted. EL_

Maybe this was going to be okay after all.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know how I feel about this anymore, but this is where it wants to go. Nothing is ever easy


	10. Chapter 10

_Want to come over tonight?_ she'd texted him early in the afternoon, and that was unusual - he had gotten in the habit of calling her on his way out of work. They'd usually decide at that point if it was a together kind of night or just a chat while he drove. Some nights were almost always the former, unless a team thing came up, some almost always the latter; she skyped with her family on Wednesdays, he did the Friday night talking group with Ed.

She had the fire on, and stepping into her flat was like walking into a wall of heat and tempting food smells. She'd made some type of stew - winter food, though it was autumn still - that was slowcooking on the wood stove.

There was a thick manila envelope on the table when he came in. Royal Canadian Navy logo. Greg tried not to let the feeling of impending doom take hold.

"So, something we need to talk about," she opened, having seen him look at it. Not wasting time. He appreciated that.

He sat down and tried not to brace himself. He'd known the next deployment was looming on the horizon; this was probably just the official confirmation. That didn't make it easier to take.

She sat next to him, knees drawn up against her chest, and he put his arm around her.

"Yeah? Good something or bad something?"

"Kind of mixed?" she grimaced. "Mostly good, I think."

"OK, fire away," he smiled encouragingly.

"They're bumping me up to Chief Second Class--"

OK, he'd not been expecting _that_ kind of news.

"Hey, promotion is _great_ news! Congratulations." He kissed her temple.

"Thank you. It comes with a job change," she moved on quickly, apparently just wanting to get it out. "They want me as a trainer - shore job."

He took a deep breath, because this was still good, but he was bracing now.

"Which is a good thing, but the shore job is in Halifax..."

"Because there's no base here," he realised with a sinking feeling. Halifax, Christ. It wasn't a world away, but between both their jobs there wouldn't be much time to keep seeing each other. Maybe this was the beginning of goodbye after all. He let out a long breath.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, trying not to let her hear his disappointment.

"I don't know yet," she sighed, curling into his side. "I only have seventeen months left until I've got my twenty years full. I could turn down the offer and request another 10-month tour."

Christ, he'd never thought he might consider that the preferable option. 10 months felt like forever, but the other months she could probably be in Toronto fulltime, bar some family visits.

"I could try to negotiate the training job into a 2 months on, 1 month off deal," she mused. "Then I could be here that month, and maybe there could even be a visit? They'll probably want to fly me onto ships fairly regularly, but I should be ashore enough to manage a weekend in the middle somewhere."

He felt a rush of relief at hearing that she was actively thinking about ways they could keep seeing each other. He hadn't wanted to presume.

"Hey," she poked at his arm. "I'm not breaking up with you. Is that what you think? Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"You're doing that slow controlled breathing thing where you're trying to figure out the most strategic and low-risk thing to say."

He breathed out a harsh laugh.  
"I didn't want to... presume you'd change your plans for me," he admitted.

"Hey, I'm not doing this for you," she said, frowning at him. "Being with you makes me happy. Ergo, trying to find a way to keep being with you is for my benefit. Totally selfish."

He pulled her in to kiss her, because he had no answer to that, just a swell of affection. He'd never known it would be such a relief that she hadn't appointed herself the job to make him happy. He still got his ups and downs, had bad days, missed his son, needed the Friday night talking group. Knowing she didn't take it personally, didn't feel it as her failure, when he had a bad day - that removed layers of misery and guilt he hadn't even known had been present in other relationships.

"The third option is to just quit. My family has been bugging me for a while now to help them expand their bison empire," she said carefully, and he got the feeling she was gauging his response here. "They want me to open a shop here. Sell their wares. I could probably give workshops and so on."

There was no denying he wished she wouldn't have to leave again, but he also knew the Navy was more than just an employer to her. Besides, she was comfortable enough - she owned her flat, and 2/3rds of her time was spent in an environment where you couldn't spend any money - but who turned their back on a pension when it was that close?

"Do you want to do that?"

"Yeah, but I really want to make my full twenty, too," she said. "If I could magically make this go the way I want it, I would take the Hali job on a two-on/one-off basis, and then when I retire I'd start that shop." She wrinkled her nose. "Urgh, I hate that word. I'll be 41, I'm not ready to refer to myself as a retiree. Let's call it 'signing off'."

"The two-on-one-off thing would be... that would be nice," he said after a moment, making a fervent wish for the universe to let it happen so that they could stay together.

"Hey, assuming this negotiation thing works out that way, I'm thinking about selling my place," she said, and something about the way she watched his face put him on alert.

"Yeah?"

"Is there an elegant way to ask if you're still interested in cohabitation?" she asked after a moment's hesitation. "Because I would be in base housing in Halifax, not sharing, and having my own nest to come back to wouldn't be quite as important, and I'd come back here that one month pretty much just to see you, and--"

He couldn't find words just then, but kissing her was a pretty effective way to make her stop rambling and convey his enthusiasm.

"Is that a yes?" she tried to catch her breath.

"That is definitely a yes, please, move in with me," he confirmed.

"Okay..." she gave him a hesitant smile, and he was suddenly still - again - waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I don't want to.. end this on a weird downer note, so this is just something to think about," she said cautiously.

He made an encouraging sound.

"I.. would like us to.. live together? Not me moving in with you. I mean, that'd be okay while I worked in Hali, it would pretty much be me visiting you, anyway. But once I'm back here fulltime, could we look at moving, getting a place together? I would like to live somewhere that really felt like ours."

He thought about his house, the empty boy's room upstairs, the walls he'd spent the past 20 years looking at. The house that had gone from his happy family house to an empty shell, all by his own doing.

"It's not that I don't like your place," she said carefully, though he was aware she'd never felt particularly comfortable in his house. "But I would really like to live somewhere with a fireplace, and a big view if we can find it, and I..." she took a deep breath. "I always feel like your place is full of ghosts, and you're still living there because.." she made a helpless gesture. "Because in some way you feel like you owe the pain of looking at your sons' room every day. That maybe you deserve that daily self-punishment, because if you can't be there for him, then at least you can torture yourself about it."

She abruptly stopped talking, worried she'd gone too far, and he sat very still, trying to keep his composure. Then, not quite aware that he'd gotten up, he was on his feet and walking toward the door.

* * *

 

He found himself back parked up in front of the liquor store. Clenched his hands tightly and slammed the car door back shut. He wasn't getting out. He wasn't going to buy anything. He was going to start his car, and drive home (house full of ghosts) (house of torment) and he was going to get through the night (somehow) (maybe) and tomorrow he was going to be at work, like always.

Half an hour later he was still sitting there in his car. He sighed and grabbed his phone. Scrolled over Grace's name in his phonebook, and decided against it.

Because she maybe wasn't wrong. Maybe he somehow felt that if he couldn't be a father to his son, at least he could keep the pain of that close, confront himself with it every day. As if that somehow could make up for even a fraction of not being in his son's life. Hearing it from her had made it all so..

He remembered now, walking out of her place in a haze. She'd gotten up, but carefully stayed out of his way, moving slowly. You weren't much of a cop if you couldn't recognise the signs of somebody who'd learned to live around an explosive temper, and he'd seen that in her early on. For her it was a long time ago and a long way away. Probably in that far-from-idyllic childhood home.

After the first time they'd really argued, and he had deliberately sat down and lowered his voice, de-escalating so they could actually resolve something, she'd never, ever shown any such careful wariness of him again. Knowing he'd caused it now filled him with shame.

No, he couldn't call her. He'd call Ed on his landline - if he was home, maybe he didn't mind talking to Greg for a while. And if he was out with his family Greg wouldn't worry his friend.

"Greg," Ed's voice came on the second ring. "You okay?"

He hesitated too long, couldn't make it sound like a casual call anymore.  
"Can I come by?" he finally forced out.

"Yeah, yeah, of course. I'm glad you called. Where are you?"

He... was not going to admit to his current location, though it was a fair bet Ed would guess it anyway.

"Ten minutes out."

"If you're not here in fifteen I'm tracking your ass down."

It was fourteen minutes before he pulled up at Ed's house. His friend was clearly on the lookout, because the front door opened before he'd even turned off the engine.

He knew that assessing look on Ed's face. In work context it was comforting to see him look at the team like that; are they well? rested? concealing any problems? Greg knew he wore that look himself.

In this context he had to fight against the embarrassment of his friend trying to see if he'd fallen off the wagon or if this was a near-miss. _There is nothing embarrassing about asking for help when you need it_ , he reminded himself. Echoing his own words to his team, trying to convince himself of his own advice.

 

"Close call?" Ed finally said, when they'd been sitting in silence for a while, and Greg had stirred his coffee far more than it warranted.

"Maybe. Yeah," he admitted.

"What happened? You have a fight with Grace?"

"She wants to move in with me," he said, then almost laughed at Ed's incredulous look.

"Isn't that what you asked her months ago?"

"Yeah, but she was talking about how she would like to buy a place together because my place.." he made a helpless gesture. Ed just gave him that patient, persistent, _annoying_ 'keep talking' look.

"She thinks I still live there as some sort of... self punishment."

"Are you?" Ed finally asked, carefully casual.

"Never thought of it that way."

"So what did you say?"

"I... I walked out," he admitted.

"Jesus Greg, and you're our lead negotiator," Ed shook his head in disbelief. "You realise I've been trying to get you to move outta that place for years, right?"

"Yeah, but you I can ignore," he said with a wry huff.

"Listen to me. You don't owe it to your boy to do penance in that house, to be miserable, because you can't be in his life." Ed said, low and intense. "You're allowed to build some happiness. It doesn't do anybody any good to spend the rest of your life as a miserable fuck, deliberately avoiding things that might make you happy."

Greg let his head thump against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling.

"Letting this house go and building something good with Grace doesn't mean you'll stop loving your son, or stop missing him and wanting him in your life," Ed said, then seemed to run out of steam. "Doesn't even mean there won't be space for him."

They just sat there in silence, two men who had been through the mill together and didn't usually need so many words for it.

"You walked out?" Ed finally asked. God knew he wasn't a model communicator, and quite frankly Sophie deserved a medal for dealing with his more screwed up moments. He did his best to make sure she knew that, though - that he appreciated it. And he never, ever walked out on her during a fight. The one time he'd done that, before Clark was born, he'd come back with a cleared head to a Sophie who'd pretty much already had resigned herself to getting a call from the traffic cops that he'd wrapped his car around a tree.

"Yeah," Greg sighed, because he was really regretting that, but it was too late for that now.

"So she's got to be pretty upset and worried now."

"Maybe, yeah."

"Maybe." Ed rolled his eyes. "Sure. The woman who wants to buy a house with you is _maybe_ worried when you storm out of that conversation."

He went to the kitchen for more coffee, and checked his cellphone. He'd left it on the counter earlier that afternoon. There was a text message from the number he'd saved as 'Greg's Grace'. It had been sent maybe twenty minutes before Greg had called. Shame he hadn't seen it then, but he supposed it had given Greg the chance to ask for help himself.

_G. walked out upset. Worried. Can you check in w/ him?_

He smiled a little, because their one meeting hadn't exactly fostered a friendship, but he appreciated that she was still concerned about and protective of Greg even after what had sounded like a major conflict. This was why she'd insisted they have each other's phone numbers, and why he'd agreed. 

 _He's with me._ _He will call you when he's got his head on straight._

He'd make sure of that, at least. He didn't need to be friends with her to welcome what her presence had been doing for Greg's life. Her answer came back immediatedly.

_OK_

Then a moment later,

_Thank you._

He winced, because Jesus, he was a cop, not a relationship councillor.

_No problem. Take care_

 

Ed set to cooking - Sophie was visiting a friend, and it was therefore steak day - and had dinner with Greg and Clark, the latter alternately silent and chattering about the computer game he was playing. Ed was grateful it seemed to be one of the times Greg found his son's company enjoyable rather than painful.

He knew Sophie had explained it to Clark, about how sometimes he reminded Mr Parker about painful things and that it wasn't anything he could help, and squeezed the boy's shoulder warmly before sending him off back to his game. He did the dishes together with Greg in comfortable silence.

Spare bed is made, if you want to," he offered offhandedly.

From Greg's relief he wondered why the hell the man was resisting the idea of moving out of a house he could hardly stand to be in.

* * *

 

Greg dialled her number while Ed was clearing some boxes out of the spare room. He pulled the phone away from his ear to glance at it. The call had connected, but he didn't hear anything. He waited a few seconds, and - ah, he could hear her breathing softly.

"So, I fucked that up," he picked up somewhere in the middle.

She gave a silent snort.

"Which, it has been pointed out to me, is embarrassing for somebody who is supposed to be a trained communicator," he continued, "and I'm sorry. It turns out I'm not really ready to think about... selling the house."

"Yes, well, I got that," she said, and she sounded sleepy and hoarse, like she'd been crying, maybe gone to bed early. He let out a slow breath, because yeah, he deserved that.

"Can we - can you give me time to get used to the idea?" he offered cautiously. "I really do want to live with you. And I..." he thought about the word 'visiting'. "Wherever we live, I want you to really feel at home there, too. There's just... a lot more to moving than just the house."

"Okay," she said softly. There was a rustle of sheets, as if she was sitting up in bed. Then, as if she'd reached a decision, "okay. I'm gonna be at Hali Base for the next few days, and then I should know more about what things are going to be like. We'll talk when I get back."

That meant he wasn't quite forgiven, because they normally talked on the phone most nights they couldn't see each other, but he'd take it.

"Yeah, good," he said.

"And Greg?" she sounded a lot more focused now, awake and in control of her voice. "No more walking away. If something's too damn much, you tell me you need some space. We'll take a break, go stand on the fucking balcony for some air - I don't care. I love you and you fucking know it, but we _do_ \- not - do - this - again."

It was the first time he'd ever heard her command voice, the one she must pull out to make things happen in the weapons control room. It was always startling to be reminded that the soft, domestic woman he spent so much time with was only a third of her, and that she was built on a core of steel. That most of her youth had been harsh weather, wild animals, heavy labour. And that two-thirds of her life since then consisted of warships at sea, of Navy barracks life and big seas.  

It was also the first time she'd ever used the word 'love'. It wasn't something he didn't already know or at least strongly suspected, but she was rarely so direct.

"Agreed," he said, because it was the only possible answer, "We don't do this again. I promise."

And then, a bubble of manic hilarity and relief making its way up his chest, "I _do_ fucking know it. And I love you too."

She snorted, actually sounding amused this time.

"Bunch of romantics we are."

"Matched set of 'em," he agreed. "I'm gonna let you get back to sleep, okay? Good luck in Halifax. Let me know how it goes."

"I will. Goodnight."

 

"Well, _that_ sounded romantic," Ed stuck his head around the doorway. " _What_ do you fucking know?"

"That she's a sailor, and occasionally swears like one if she wants to make a point," he said, shaking his head in amused disbelief.

"But you're good?"

"We're.. better."

 


	11. Chapter 11

Her car was still cooling down, so she was barely ahead of him. When she opened the door she'd only taken off her uniform jacket, still wearing the shoes, skirt and blouse of her dress uniform, her hair tucked up in a neat roll. Not a look he'd ever seen before, and he took a moment to look her over.

There wasn't much he wouldn't find her attractive in, but she also didn't look like the person he knew, at all. The lines of the shirt collar and the hairstyle brought out the planes and angles in her face, made her look harder. Older, too.

There was something playful in the way she normally wore her hair, something young - not diminished by the grey streaks, which she usually arranged so they showed interestingly. The plain, tight bun made her look very different.

She gave him an arch look at being inspected, and he grinned and leaned in to kiss her hello. They'd already talked a little when she'd called from the airport, so the remainder of awkwardness about the way they'd last seen each other had dissipated.  

"How did it go?"

She brushed an imaginary speck of dust off her shoulder, drawing his attention to the new crown-and-laurel insignia.

"Ah! Congratulations," he smiled. "Do I call you 'Chief' from now on?"

"Depends, do you want to get called 'Sarge'?"

He grimaced, because god, no. Not by her. There were definitely some associations he didn't want to mix.

"Sir?" she suggested with a glint in her eyes.

"That's negotiable."

He kissed her, because it was impossible not to when she gave him that kind of look, but then disengaged and held her at arm's length.

"Negotiable _later_. Any news on the job thing?"

"They'll go for the two-on/one-off thing, but it sounds like it would be a pretty solid two months. Probably no way to work in a visit."

"Shame, but missing you two months instead of ten? Still a big improvement. Are you taking it?"

"Already did."

There was something intensely comforting about the way she made her choices. She'd taken him into account, but he wasn't responsible for this choice; that was all her. No matter how this new job turned out, the weight of it wasn't on his shoulders.

"I reconsidered about selling this place," she continued, fast and a little breathless. As if she worried about his reaction and wanted to get it over with.

"I figured you would," he said. It made sense she wouldn't want to sell her flat if he couldn't guarantee he'd be willing to move out of his house and buy a place together.

In the cold light of day, her spending a month in his house while he was at work all day hadn't seemed like the best idea anyway. He wondered if it had been an impulse idea or if she'd felt she'd needed to offer that concession before she could bring up the possibility of buying a house together.

"Can I come and spend a lot of time here while you're in town?"

It was small, but he liked her flat. They'd built good memories there. And maybe it wasn't a bad idea to get a feel for what living together might be like. He didn't think he'd want to move in completely, even just for a month, but he could use it as his home base for most of the week.

"Of course!"

She bounced on the balls of her feet, suddenly full of happy energy, and he felt something settle in his stomach, some lingering fear that was fading. Despite their phone conversation before she'd gone to Halifax, part of him hadn't truly believed they could get past this, had feared it would not be fixable. She apparently thought differently. He'd never known her to hold grudges, which was a blessing when dating somebody who regularly had to cancel dates.

She rose up onto toetips to brush a kiss against his lips, and then spun away toward her bedroom, pulling out hairpins as she went. He shook his head to snap out of his daze, and followed, staying in the doorway.

He watched her shake out her hair, change out of her uniform, move with an  unselfconscious grace he couldn't look away from. She was aware that he was watching, but she didn't 'do' sexy; it wouldn't occur to her to make a show of it. He found that attractive in and of itself. She just was her sure-footed self, comfortable with his eyes on her in a way that made him feel warm from the inside out. It was the kind of intimate that had nothing to do with skin.

"The uniform doing it for you?" she asked, throwing a smile his way as she stepped out of her skirt. It revealed part of the large tattoo she had along her side, all the way from her ribs to halfway her thigh. He'd never have thought he could like that much ink on a woman, but it suited her; a landscape that was almost like a rough sketch imprecisely coloured with water colours, with stylised figures of bison and bears and wolves. He traced it with his tongue sometimes. She was ticklish. He'd learned that he was maybe a little bit of a sadist about that.

" _You're_ doing it for me," he smiled back, leaning against the doorjamb.

* * *

 

She was making coffee the next morning, looking sleep-soft and rumpled in her tank top and the fleece trousers with kissy lip pattern. ("Don't judge me! It was the only warm thing they sold in Bahrain airport." "Sorry, still judging you.") He was cutting thick slices of some kind of dark rye bread when he remembered something.

"Hey, Ed's doing a potluck thing Saturday. He asked me to invite you."

He tried not to let his questions show in his voice, because Ed had actually said 'Get Grace to come along, will you?' and Greg had no idea where that had come from. He'd have thought Ed wouldn't be too eager to have her along for team activities.

"Oh. Okay," she smiled, either missing or cheerfully disregarding his curiosity. Probably the second. If he really wanted to know why the sudden cessation of hostilities, he'd have better luck prying it out of Ed. He suspected it was something to do with his... his behaviour on monday though, and if they had reached some sort of understanding that involved his near-miss with a bottle, it might be more comfortable all around not to know.

* * *

 

"Are you eating here tonight?" she asked, a little breathless from a goodbye kiss that he'd been unwilling to end quite yet.

"I'm _cooking_ here tonight," he reminded her, pulling her in to press a kiss to her forehead.

"Ohhh."

He packed away the image of her expression right then, of her face close and tilted up to him, the light in her eyes, warm and bright and a little mischievous. He was going to keep that image with him all day. And perhaps for the first time he could believe that she would still be there tonight, that he could trust that she wouldn't suddenly disappear.

"Have a good day."

"mm, you too."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brain candy. Didn't I say brain candy?


	12. Chapter 12

Dinner had been nice, if later than he'd intended due to some overtime. Team 2 had been handling a crisis that had been slow to resolve. He'd still enjoyed cooking with her. Not for her - it was impossible to keep her from getting involved unless he tied her to a kitchen chair. No matter, he enjoyed those moments, shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen. Enjoyed knowing that it meant something to her, too.

She'd been restless since then though, changed knitting projects three times, cast on a fourth and then put it away again. He was waiting for her to spit out whatever was bothering her.

"So, potluck," she finally said briskly, coming to a halt in front of where he was sitting on the couch. "Help. What do I cook? What do I wear? How does this work?"

He looked up her, trying to figure out if she was serious - because really, this was what had been bothering her all night? - and she made a face.

"Everything I know about this kind of social situation I know from movies," she reminded him, sounding both amused and a little embarrassed. "And I didn't exactly hit it off with your team last time. I'd appreciate some intel."

He reminded himself that in some ways, this was an alien situation to her, and that the less she felt she was going in blind, the easier it would be to relax around his team.

"OK, full briefing. Come here," he nodded, tugging her down onto the couch next to him. She went easily, curling into his side. "People: the team. Leah is on extended leave, the rest will be there. Families: Sophie is Ed's wife. They have a 14 year old son, Clark. Wordy's wife will be there too, her name is Shelley. They have three girls. Youngest is two, oldest is... nine now, I think."

He felt her nod.

"It's at Ed and Sophie's place in the suburbs. They have tile inside, so you'll probably want to wear shoes you can keep on."

She never wore outdoor footwear inside, always switched to soft indoor slippers at the door. One of the first things she'd started leaving at his house back when they'd first started dating was a pair of knit slippers.

"It's casual. I'll be wearing jeans and a button up. Nothing between a hoodie and a nice top will look out of place."

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, food: Sophie is a caterer, and sometimes she cooks for everybody, but this time it a let's-give-Sophie-a-break time night. Everybody brings something. I have been instructed to bring chili."

He grinned, because he had that chili down to an art, and it felt good to hear it requested - demanded, even. Jules had been adamant about 'Sarges' Chili'.

"There's usually plenty of savoury stuff, so if you want to make something, there's always enthusiasm for something dessert like."

"Okay," she nodded. "Any allergies or intolerances you know of?"

"No."

"Okay. Something not too heavy, I imagine. Can do."

He hesitated, but if he wanted her to be able to relax, she probably needed to know this.

"This isn't common knowledge, because they only just know themselves, but Sophie is pregnant. I doubt it will come up, but I didn't want you to feel--" he gestured vaguely.

"-- blindsided?" she finished, pulling her legs up and pushing closer to press a kiss against his throat. "Thank you."

He'd never tried to get more beyond the general, but he was aware that if she had been able to have children, she would have. All she'd said was that she had been very sick when she was 17. There was a small, faded surgery scar low on her stomach that he thought might be related.

It was ancient hurt, she'd said as much. She'd had a long time to come to terms with it, and obviously made herself a life she was happy with. She doted upon her nieces and nephews and volunteered for a reading program with kids. Had talked about a mentoring program for teens once she was out of the Navy.

He couldn't help but be protective of her, wanting to shield her from things that might be painful, or at least make sure she knew they were coming.

Sometimes his protective instincts needed to be kept in check - it had been hard to let her go on deployment, and it would be harder still to let her go the next time, being that much closer to her.

Other times, like now, she seemed to enjoy the care, and that it made him feel good to protect her. It made him feel good to spare her pain when he had so many days he couldn't spare other people pain. He held her close for a while, warm and content.

"You know, some people might consider it strange that I just gave you a briefing about a team dinner," he said finally.

"Screw 'em, I like to work from good recon," she said into his neck. Then she bit him, a pleasant jolt to his system. He curled his fingers into her hair, tugging her head back, and she gave a soft little hum, eyes drifting shut.

"Wanna go to bed?"

"Mmm. Let's do that."


	13. Chapter 13

Sophie had enlisted Sam and Spike in the kitchen, and Shelley was busy with her youngest. Wordy and Jules were talking about the arrest warrant they had coming up on Monday. Greg had already reviewed it with them, so he figured he'd stay out of their conversation

Ed was standing at the entrance to the den, drinking beer and watching quietly. 

Greg found Grace by following Ed's gaze: she was sitting crosslegged on the floor with Wordy's older girls, keeping them out from underfoot by telling them a story. Clark was hovering nearby, apparently half feeling that he was too mature for stories, but still wanting to hear.

"It's not too late if you get on with it, you know," Ed said in a low voice, cutting his eyes over to Grace and the girls. "Didn't you say you'd give your right arm...?"

" _Don't_ say that to her," he said, hoping his tone and eye contact conveyed how very much this was a no-go conversation topic. "Sensitive subject."

He knew it wasn't a raw wound to her, more like a path that had been blocked from her before she'd even consciously wanted to walk down it. There was more wistfulness than pain there. Having to explain why she wouldn't be having children to well-meaning people who liked the idea of Greg having a second go at fatherhood though... that wasn't a position he wanted her put in.

And he knew he'd said that, about the second chance, but he was beginning to think it might be better like this. Better to have that space open, should Dean ever come back into his life. Better to not feel like he was replacing his son, relegating him to a practice run.

Ed frowned a little, but nodded in acceptance.

 

They watched for a long moment as Grace used the back of the pages of a colouring book to make quick, rough pencil sketches while she told her story. Showing the animals she was talking about.

Greg went over to sit down on the couch behind her, gently tugging her over to lean against his legs. She tipped back her head to give him an upside down smile. He smiled back and handed her the glass of water he'd brought, and she rubbed her cheek against his knee for a moment in thanks, a small, fond touch.

Then she went on with the story of how the pet bison she'd had as a kid had come to the main house because it had been scared of the wolf howls. There were bears in the story too, and it was a little bit scary - the girls were holding hands - but also cute and age appropriate. After a minute, Clark decided that clearly if Greg was listening openly this was not a kid's story and so he could too, and settled down on the other end of the couch.

Ed was also still listening in, but she'd either not noticed he was there, or managed to successfully block him out. They hadn't said much to eachother that Greg knew. He thought the two of them had a kind of detente - he was pretty sure the remaining tension was because neither had figured out what to do with the other. She didn't fit in the category of 'Copper's wife' Ed apparently had in his mind, but she also wasn't somebody he could relate to professionally.

He had the impression she'd only ever met people like Ed in work context, so she had to work on figuring out a civilian way of interacting with him. He was pretty sure that they would get on well once they figured out their sense of humour matched, though, so that was hopeful.

Greg idly played with her thick braid and enjoyed the story, just as much for the insight into her childhood as for the plot. She was a skilled storyteller, something she'd said was definitely part of her family culture. Long dark winters, he supposed, were good for developing that sort of skills. There were some hints of Aborigine views of nature - the wolves weren't evil like they would have been in Western stories, just trying to look after their cubs - but not so much that the story was alien to the girls.

He'd always noticed that she was a sensory person; the kneading of the dough and the scent of baking bread were just as important as the resulting bread. The wood stove burned for its scent and light and sound as much as for the heat. Wood art was for trailing your fingers along just as much as for looking at. She liked the creak of his leather winter boots, the scent of new snow in the air and the rhythmic clack and hiss of her spinning wheel.

Her stories included all of the senses, telling of how things had sounded and felt and smelled, making them vivid and engrossing. She took off the fine knit lace shawl she'd worn and let the girls pet and smell the fine brown wool, explaining that it was made from the baby bison's first shedding of down.

(Given that it had been a midwinter gift from her mother the year before that was probably stretching the truth a little, but it didn't matter; the girls were enthralled.)

Sounds about food being almost ready began to emanate from the kitchen, and she rounded off her story, to protest from her audience. Even Clark, reluctance forgotten, asked for more about bears.

"After dinner, okay? Why don't you guys go wash your hands and see if you can help?" she sent them off.

Greg and Grace stayed where they were for a few minutes longer. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

"You're good at that."

She shrugged.  
"Storytelling for children is fun. They don't notice the logic gaps where you leave out the gory bits."

"I thought you had a policy against hiding the true nature of the bison empire?"

Which was that while it was as animal friendly as possible, it was still essentially a cattle operation that turned bison into meat, fibre, leather and assorted end products. He supposed that given the heritage of her family, there was nothing contradictory about caring for animals, struggling to see them through the winters, almost revering them, and making a living from the products you turned them into.

She'd turned the side of her face against his knee, looking up at him.   
"Aww, they're so young. I wanted to make it a cute story about life up north, not nightmare fodder."

He couldn't help smiling, and that was when he heard the shutter sound.

Wordy was at the doorway, looking at his camera phone with satisfaction.

Greg threw him a Look, and the man grinned.

"Sorry boss, but I think I just got the winning pic of the photo competition," he said, not sounding sorry at all.

"Photo competition?" Grace asked.

"Cutest photo of the boss and yourself," Wordy clarified. "And I feel like you kind of owe me the win, given that my girls are going to be begging me for a pet bison for the next month or so."

She climbed to her feet, not very successfully trying to hide a grin.

"I better not find these photos around the station, Wordy, or your girls will be getting drumsets and trumpets for their birthdays," Greg said mildly, getting up too.

"Whoa, there's no need to do that, boss," Wordy said, in a slow, careful tone straight out of a negotiation training session. "I'm putting the phone away now, see? It's gone."

 

Dinner was a noisy affair of people loading their plates at the kitchen island, critiquing eachother's offerings, and finding places to sit.   

Grace got to talking with Spike, which devolved into Spike, Grace and Clark bent over the inner workings of an old remote control car before any of them had even finished their plates.

"Well, that's them entertained for the night," Ed said dryly.

He wasn't wrong; they were still at it by the time Wordy and Shelley decided to head home. Their youngest was nodding off.

The two older girls started crying, saying they'd been promised another story.

"That's true, I did promise that," Grace agreed. She glanced up at Wordy, coat already on. "But your mum and dad want to go home now, okay? Hey, I have an idea..."

She drew the girls close and whispered something to them. After a moment the sniffling stopped and they nodded.

"Should I be worried?" Wordy asked when the girls went to put on their coats without much further complaint.

Grace just smiled at him. Greg repressed his grin.

 

"So boss, how did you meet her?"

"She was being held hostage by kittens," Greg said, entirely deadpan. "And I peacefully resolved the conflict."

"Oh come on boss, just tell us."

"Is it embarrassing?" Sam perked up.

"Seriously boss, you can tell us," Jules did the earnest eyes thing, and Greg was hard pressed not to laugh.

"Actually true," he said.

"Sure. Hey Grace, how did you meet the boss here?" Ed said, distracting her from the remote controlled...thing.

She glanced at Greg, who shrugged.

"I was volunteering at the animal shelter, doing some vital socialisation work in the kitten room-"

"-she'd fallen asleep and they were using her as mattress," Greg supplied sotto voce.

"As I was saying, vital socialisation work," she continued tartly, "and I needed some help getting free without spooking them."

"How can you fall asleep with kittens all over you?" Sam asked.

"They have a really comfortable chair. I think I was maybe two or three days off ship, I hadn't caught up on sleep yet," Grace shrugged.

"And you, boss, were in the kitten room because...?" Ed asked.

"Found a kitten under my car in the supermarket parking lot, and you are afraid of cats."

Ed gave him a very dry look.

"As I said, rescued her from being held hostage by kittens," Greg concluded.

"My hero," Grace said earnestly, giving him a wide-eyed look of hero worship that broke through his pokerface and made him snort with laughter.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Held hostage by kittens. Obviously that was a story that needed telling.

It was a little more complicated than that. The kitten had clung fiercely to his woollen jumper, impossible to get off, and after a brief examination the shelter vet had asked Greg if he would just sit in the kitten room for a few minutes. The kitten would get distracted and go explore on its own.

He'd never thought he was a cat person until this tiny ball of fluff had decided he was the safest place in the whole world. Suddenly he wished he was home more, that he could adopt it. Maybe that would be nice, to have a living creature to come home to, something to make the place feel less empty.

The kitten room had cat climbing towers all along one wall, a big structure full of little hidey holes. There were two kittens up there that he could see, chasing each other from platform to platform. On the other side of the room were a few chairs, and a lot of cat toys on the floor.

He spotted the other human occupant of the room immediately. She was curled up in one of the comfortable chairs. Combat boots kicked off onto the floor, her legs pulled up under her. Her dark brown hair was in a messy braid, and she wore jeans and a Navy hoodie that was presently covered in cat hair.

And kittens. She was asleep, head tilted to the side, face relaxed. Apparently she'd been still enough for long enough that the very shy occupants of the room had decided she was a safe and warm place to sleep, because a tiny kitten had curled up under her chin, and there were four more sleeping in various positions on her arms and torso.

He'd stood there watching her for maybe a few seconds when she took a sharp intake of breath, eyes snapping open. She focused on him, and he could tell she was about to jerk upright when he held out his hand, palm to her, a stop gesture.

"Wait, don't move. Don't move," he said, stepping closer, and something in her expression and the way her body tensed made him stop, occupational instincts kicking in. Maybe charging at somebody who might be disoriented and telling her not to move was not the best course of action.

"I'm Greg. Everything is okay," he said, pitching his voice low and soothing. Giving her his disarming smile. "You just have a little.. kitten problem."

"Why are you in my... are the engines-- _what_?" she blinked, seeming to take in the room for the first time.

"Kittens. You're in the animal shelter," he supplied, staying where he was, letting her get her bearings.

"Oh. Sure," she muttered after a long moment. Or maybe it was 'shore'. "Kittens. Right."

She relaxed a little, carefully looking down until she felt the fur of the one sleeping at the base of her throat.

 "I appear to have a kitten infestation," she stated after a moment, lips quirking up. Sounding sleepily bemused. Greg relaxed.

 "I hear that can be a problem. Would you like a hand?" he offered.

 She tried to move her arms, discovered the kittens sleeping on her sleeves, effectively pinning her arms, and dropped back her head with a chuckle.

 "Nah, they can stay for a bit, I've got time," she said. "Sorry to go all twitchy on you."

 "Sorry for alarming you," he countered, sitting down in the chair next to her, so she could see him without straining her neck. "Did you think you were still on a ship?"

It was an easy guess, given the combat boots and the hoodie, and the mention of engines.

"Yeah. Shit, are the engines out? Why is there no alarm? And why is there a guy outta uniform in my cabin, telling me not to move?" she snorted softly. "Always takes a while for everything to stop feeling wrong."

"Have you been home long?"

"Two... no, three days now. Thought I would come for my kitten fix," she smiled, and it transformed her whole face. "And you? Here to adopt?"

"I wish," he said, realising he really meant it. "I make long hours, it wouldn't really be fair." He opened his jacket enough that she could see the tiny kitten that was still clinging to his jumper, supported by the crook of his arm. "I've come to deliver."

"Awww, look at the little stripes," she cooed, face going soft. It was strangely endearing. She looked back to him, something of that softness still around her eyes. "Long hours, huh? Are you a cop?"

He must have looked surprised.

"I noticed you were quick on the assessment there," she said. "And I think I recognised some de-escalation tactics."

He stifled a grimace, because he wasn't sure if he liked being pegged as a cop so easily, but what could it hurt?

"I am a cop," he confirmed. "And what do you do on a Navy ship that requires de-escalation training?"

"I'm a Petty Officer in the Weapons Control room. 98% of the time everything is pretty calm in there."

"But the remaining 2 percent, I imagine emotions can get high," he nodded.

"Yup," she grinned, popping the P, shifting a little in her chair. "I want to move now. Could you...?"

Greg slowly reached out and very gently moved kittens to free her arms. Two of them woke up, gave tiny hisses, and jumped down to the ground to glare at him. The other two stayed asleep. When her arms were free she carefully moved the kitten that had been in her neck to her lap.

She rolled her neck, making a low sound of satisfaction as it popped.

"Mmm, much better." She offered her hand. "Hi, I'm Grace Gaudin."

"Nice to meet you. Greg Parker."

He felt a touch to his feet, and there was a kitten batting at his shoe laces. The both of them grinned as he wiggled his foot and another kitten bounded over.

 

He'd stayed far longer than he'd intended, and far longer than it took for the little stripey kitten to let go its limpet-like grip and venture into the room. He'd spent more than an hour playing with kittens and talking to a woman who was still trying to get a handle on shore life.

He'd asked her out before he left. Not because he saw some great romance brewing, but because he liked her, and she seemed to get what his job demanded, and - if he was honest - because she didn't have any children.

He'd really liked Sylvia, but knowing her son would be the collateral damage if he screwed things up had paralysed him. And not just for the boy's sake, because in hindsight he'd been afraid to grow attached to the boy and then lose him when the relationship ended.

There was no danger of that this time. No kids. It was a relief.

Sylvia had ended things after he'd let slip a little too much about a bad job, and she'd realised that it was far more dangerous than she'd thought. She had already lost enough to want to risk being with somebody in that kind of job, she'd said. He didn't think he could really blame her.

So he'd gone for coffee with Grace, and spent more time in the kitten room with her, and they explored interesting new restaurants, which was apparently part of her post-deployment routine. From there they moved into spending time at either of their homes together.

And in hindsight he could admit to himself that he'd allowed himself to get more involved with her because he'd always known she was going back on deployment. It had seemed the expiry date on the relationship was five months, and that had felt good, had felt safe, like there were clear boundaries. They could enjoy each other's company for that time, with no expectations for what came later. The stakes were low. The rules were clear.

It was just that it turned out she'd been playing by different rules, because she hadn't distanced herself leading up to deployment as he'd expected her to. Had said goodbye, if not with tears, at least with the sincere insistence that she would miss him. And then when she was back at sea she'd emailed, and called, and maybe at first it was his professional reflex of never turning down communication when it was offered, but he'd never stopped replying.

Or maybe it was that she was a good correspondent, with lively, vivid stories about life at sea and unexpected turns into philosophy. Perhaps it had been the shared understanding they had of carrying the weight of a team on your shoulders, even if hers was different than his and she jokingly called them her 'minions'. Maybe it was the way he'd been her lifeline to normal shore life, or how he could share things about work without worrying they would scare her off.

The relationship hadn't been on standstill while she was away, which was what he had expected once he'd realised her deployment wasn't the end of it. Near daily emails had meant they shared a lot of themselves; past, present and future, dreams and disappointments. Almost without noticing it had developed into something that had made him want to have her near all the time.

He'd wondered for a time if she'd deliberately gone slow and cautious for his sake. The one time he had made a reference to it, she'd just confessed that it had taken her until a month _after_ she came back to really believe that he could handle the deployments.

 


	15. Chapter 15

"Boss, can you shine any light on why my girls are building a stable in their room and claiming that I will bring them home a bison each?"

"Um, no?"

Grace hadn't said anything about what she'd said to the girls.

"Could you ask Grace?" Wordy looked just maybe slightly desperate. "Because they're _very_ excited about it."

And that was bound to end in serious tears if he couldn't deliver, that much was clear. Greg didn't think she'd promised something that wouldn't happen. She might have enjoyed making Wordy squirm, because she was used to a complete work/life divide and the idea of the photo contest had made her uncomfortable. He hadn't missed that she'd avoided possible photo-ops for the rest of the night. But deliberately disappointing kids wasn't her style. He just had no idea what she'd said to them.

"I will ask."

 

When he asked her that evening, she laughed and produced three stuffed toys in ascending sizes. They were made from a soft brown felt, simply made from two bison silhouettes hand-stitched together with coarse thread, and stuffed. She'd put a handwritten little card around the neck of each toy with a ribbon, with its name what and it liked.

He was beginning to get a sense for what the things her family made would sell for - a visit to the webshop had been educational - and those were not cheap gifts.

"My sister sent me felt she made from carding leftovers, and we've been talking about children's toys, so Wordy's girls can be my test audience?" she said, just a touch uncertain.

"I am sure they will love them."

* * *

 

Thankfully the photo had only turned up shoved through the gap of his locker, though the team had clearly seen it first. Ed had declared it 'liable to give him Diabetes.'

He still stared at the photo every time he opened his locker. It was the first he'd seen of them together, and it still startled him every time how they were looking at each other, how focused, how fond. Her face upturned to him, every line of their bodies directed at each other. He was trained to read body language, did it without conscious thought, and it was still surreal to register 'these two people are in love' and then remind himself that that was him in the photo.

* * *

 

Grace had lamented that she'd never done Halloween. Her family didn't do anything about it, she'd frequently been at sea at that time of year, and nobody in her apartment building did Halloween. He'd offered to let her take over his house.

This lead to two full days of pumpkin carving, a house more decorated than it had been in at least 10 years (maybe ever) and a big bucket of candy by the door.

She clearly hadn't been sure if he wanted to join in on the night itself. He hadn't been sure either. And given that at the slightest mention of Halloween happening at Greg's, Wordy had declared he would be bringing by the girls, Greg wasn't going to go for anything too weird in terms of costume. No need to supply the team with blackmail material, after all.

Grace had suggested holding up an iron and declaring 'I am Iron Man!' but next to her efforts that seemed a little meagre.

He ended up opening the door in a bland grey suit, with a bluetooth earpiece and an expressionless face. He held a bag of flour in his hand.

Next to him Grace wore a close-fitted coverall type suit, a fake sidearm, an earpiece, her hair tied back and a identical expression. They crossed their arms perfectly in sync and convinced any callers that it was in the name of national security that they take the offered candy bar.

Not all the younger kids got it, but most of the older kids and the parents did, and there was the occasional cry of "Agent Coulson is ALIVE!" and a couple of teens shouting "FURY IS A LYING LIAR WHO LIES!" from across the street.

Greg hadn't really done more than say hello to his neighbours in years, and it was strange to take part in something so communal - open doors, excited kids in costumes (most of which he completely failed to recognise) and slightly frazzled parents trying to keep everything under control. He'd expected to feel melancholy, because he had done that walk once, Dean's hand in his. Mostly it was a lot of fun though. There were a few times he struggled, especially when little boys came to the door, but Agent Coulson's bland expression was perfect for hiding behind, and Grace jumped in to take the lead when he needed a moment.

Wordy actually stared when they opened the door to him and his two oldest girls. The youngest had stayed home with Shelley to open their door. He pulled out his camera phone.

"Sorry boss, but _this_ I have to share."

They held the crossed-arms pose for the photo, then Grace broke down to the oldest girl - dressed as Buffy the Vampire Slayer - whisper-asking if she was 'the bison lady'. Right at about that same moment Greg realised that the other girl was dressed as Princess Hulk. Green makeup, top and leggings, with a tutu and a tiara.

"It's so I can smash like a princess!" she confided excitedly.

There was no way to hang on to his bland expression after that, and he didn't care.

 

The girls were impatient to go knock on more doors, so Wordy left again after ten minutes, dragged along by Buffy on one hand and Princess Hulk on the other. He'd apparently sent the photo as a mass text to the whole team, because Greg's phone didn't stop buzzing with new messages for a while.

 

[Wordy] [photo] _Right now. At the bosses' place_.

[Sam] _Is that... Agents Hill and Coulson I see?! Holy crap, boss. Badass. Bad ass._

[Jules] _OH WOW THAT IS *PERFECT*!_

[Ed] _Boss, I literally cannot think of a better costume for you_

[Spike] _HE EVEN HAS THE BAG OF FLOUR!! COULSON LIVES!_

[Ed] _Wordy, sharing is caring. Print that shit and plaster it around the station tomorrow_

[Jules] _Am at a party. Have just been declared to have the coolest boss of everyone here_

[Spike] _Does this make us the Avengers?_

[Spike] _Have decided it does. Which makes me Tony Stark. I can live with that._

[Spike] _So, Ed is Capt America, fearless team leader. Sam is Hawkeye. Jules obv. Widow_.

[Sam] _Wordy is Thor. All friendly and cheerful right up to the point where it's headbusting time_

[Wordy] [photo] _We've got the Hulk covered, guys_

[Jules] _Clearly I am at the wrong party_

 

The second photo was of Greg kneeled down to bring his face at the same height as Princess Hulk, listening with a serious expression as she was (judging by the ferocious expression) telling him about smashing. He showed the conversation to Grace and she had to go sit on the steps for a while, her secret agent expression crumpling into laughter every time she glanced at him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was further up in the timeline, but I could not stop grinning when I thought of Greg as Agent Coulson (because HOW PERFECT IS THAT?!) so I moved it forward :-)


	16. Chapter 16

_Sorry, crashing tonight. Long day_  he texted one-handedly before he started the car. Good thing it was his left arm, and he could still drive. Carefully.

_You okay? Sleep well_

_Fine. Just really tired_

And sore. His arm was throbbing in a way the painkillers hadn't quite taken away - he'd refused the heavy stuff they'd offered. The drugged feeling reminded him uncomfortably of the effect of alcohol, and he stuck to paracetamol if he could help it. A clear head, that was what he needed.

His back was sore too. The bullet had gotten him in the vest, but that didn't mean there wasn't a bruise deepening right now.

He appreciated that the team had wanted to wind down, make sure he was okay, but he'd been wanting to be at home for hours now, ice the bruise, go to bed.

It was Thursday, and he didn't usually see Grace on Friday anyway because of the support group. He'd have to make that, or Ed would be on his case.

Saturday might be a problem though. He'd arranged to go hiking with Grace, but the way his back was feeling now he wouldn't be up for that kind of exercise. He could cancel, but then he definitely needed an explanation. And it wasn't like he could avoid her for as long as would be needed for his arm to heal and the bruise to fade. Or as if he wanted to go that long without seeing her.

 

He woke up feeling like a car had backed over him, his entire back sore and tense. He took two paracetamol and made it into work, where he was put on a team-imposed and -enforced light duty. Thankfully there were no warrants planned and no crises either, so he spent most of the day on the report of the bomb incident.

Ed sat down at the conference table at the end of the day, already back in civvies. He idly looked through the various reports and files Greg had spread out.

"What did Grace say?"

"About what?" Greg asked distractedly.

"About you getting shot."

"Haven't seen her yet."

"And..." Ed paused meaningfully. "And, you haven't told her?"

"Didn't want to worry her over nothing."

"And you don't think not being able to trust that you'll tell her if you get hurt isn't going to cause worry?"

"Ed."

"Christ, Greg. Even I could see that she cares about you. Why would you--"

"Ed..." he heard his own voice go low and sharp.

"She's been in the military for what, 18 years? Maybe you should trust that she can handle it."

"Ed." he snapped. "Leave it."

Ed let out an explosive breath and got up.

"Yeah, sure boss. I'll see you at the meeting tonight?"

"You will," Greg confirmed without looking up.

 

He made it through the group meeting by dint of gritting his teeth and waiting for it to be over. Ed gave him a few looks, but let it go for now. Probably not for long, but Greg would take what he could get.

 _Feeling better, I hope?_ He saw the message when he switched his phone back on after the meeting.

_A little, but not feeling up to a hike tomorrow. Rain check?_

_:-/ okay. Hope you feel better soon_

He breathed a sigh of relief at how easily she let it go, and drove home. When he was halfway there he heard another text message. He couldn't check until he'd parked up in his garage.

_I could come over and cook?_

She had never invited herself over unasked, or without knowing for sure she was welcome at that moment. She had a key of his house, a symbolic 'You are welcome at any time,' but she still never came over without asking first.

He wondered if it had something to do with living on ships, where the limited privacy of curtains and cabins was sacrosanct and you never went into somebody's private space without express invitation. This cautious offer was the closest she got. And he wanted to encourage it, damn it, but he also just didn't want her to see him like this.

It had already been 20 minutes since her message, and confident as she could be in some ways, if he cancelled two dates and ignored this tentative offer, she would probably add two and two and come up with nine.

 _Sorry, was driving. Yeah, that would be nice_ he finally texted back. Maybe he'd feel better by then.

 

He did feel a bit better, but it still hurt and the one-handed thing was getting frustrating. He wouldn't overdo it, because that way lay longer reval than strictly needed, but the whole thing was just annoying and inconvenient.

It was too much to ask that Grace didn't notice his flinch when she moved to hug him. It was a gentle embrace, much more careful than usual, and now she was watching him.

She made tea first, put the groceries she'd brought for dinner in his fridge. Watched him gingerly settle down on the couch. God, everything was exhausting.

"So, you got shot?" she finally said, leaning against the kitchen entryway.

"Ed tell you that?"

Her eyes widened a little, and he realised she'd been bluffing. Damn. He sighed, not wanting to outright lie and too tired to bother evading.

"Scratch on the arm, and one in the vest."

"You got shot," she paused meaningfully, "on _Thursday_."

He said nothing, because, yeah.

"Were you intending to mention this at any point?" she said after a long silence.

"I didn't want a fuss," he finally said, aware that this wasn't going well, but not knowing what else to say.

She clenched her jaw, looking at him for a long moment. Then she shook her head, dismissing whatever she'd been about to say. Went to the back door. "I'm going to get some air."

She went into the snowy garden without bothering with coat or shoes, carefully closing the door behind her.

He could see her through the half-opened curtains, body rigid, the picture of frustration. Then she bent down to make a snowball and flung it at the back fence. It exploded into powder, and was followed by two more, hitting exactly where the first had. She'd once mentioned that she was 'Decent with a rifle, acceptable with a handgun, and deadly with a snowball,' but the memory couldn't make him smile right now.

She walked around for a bit, her back turned toward the house, and Greg dropped his head against the back of the couch, staring at the ceiling and trying to remember why it had been so important she didn't find out.

She came back in a few minutes later, face red with the cold, eyes a little swollen. Her feet had to be freezing.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"What? No!"

His immediate, startled reaction seemed to halt her in whatever trail of thought she'd been heading down.

"Will you come sit, so we can figure this out?" he indicated the space next to him on the couch. She nodded after a moment's hesitation.

He'd meant for her to sit next to him like usual, put his arm around her. She took the other end of the couch instead, back against the arm rest so she could look at his profile. His back was sore enough that he couldn't easily turn to her, and he wondered if she'd done it on purpose.

"Your feet must be freezing," he said when she pulled off the socks and drew her feet up under her. He offered her the blanket that was on his side of the couch.

"Wool isolates well," she shrugged, accepting the blanket.

"Are you upset because I got shot or because I didn't tell you?"

"The second."

"Look, it's just..." he sighed. "Remember last month when you were sick, and you told me not to come over? You said you just wanted to feel crap in private."

"Uh-huh."

"It's like that. When I'm in pain I just.. prefer to be on my own, not have somebody... fussing over me."

"Okay," she nodded. "Yeah, I remember that. I don't like anybody around when I'm puking."

She'd outright said that the idea of somebody holding back her hair horrified her.

She was silent for a long moment.

"But hey, remember the part where I _told you what was going on_ instead of letting you think I was blowing you off?"

Yeah, okay. That was maybe an oversight on his part when making the comparison. She'd told him to please stay away, and after making sure she had enough food and supplies in the house, he'd honoured that. He hadn't liked it, but he wasn't going to push.

"I was worried about how you'd react," he finally admitted.

"It.. is... not news to me that you do a dangerous job," she said slowly. "I hate that you got shot, but I'm not sure what you thought would happen if you told me."

He realised he wasn't sure either; it had been some kind of reflexive idea that he needed to hole up and lick his wounds and not let her know.

"I have-- you-- it's been a dealbreaker before."

She let out a huff of breath, dropping her head sideways again the backrest of the couch. After a minute she stretched out her legs, and put the soles of her bare feet against his thigh, letting her legs bridge the distance between them. Her feet were damp and cold, though not as frozen as he'd feared. He took the touch for a peace offering, and folded his hand around her feet to warm them.

They sat like that for a long time, each sunken in their own thoughts. Greg let his thumb caress the arch of her foot, firmly enough not to tickle. Her feet were already warm again. She was nothing if not resilient.

"You know," she said suddenly, "I always tell my team that in a crisis, it's okay to tell people that the best way they can help is by standing back and letting us work."

He made an acknowledging sound, not sure where this was going.

"I get that sometimes there's nothing I can do, maybe even nothing you want me to do. But this - makes me feel like you didn't trust me not to freak out."

She made a helpless gesture.

"And I don't know, maybe this is my pride speaking, but given that I work in a high-pressure environment where friends and acquaintances go into direct combat against pirates with AK-40s and Molotov cocktails, I'd like to be credited with having the sense to react in a sane manner."

"I know that you do," he finally said. "It's just.. sometimes I still operate on automatic."

She sighed, but said nothing, and he realised this was probably about as far as they would get on the issue. He wasn't proud of the way he'd handled it, but he couldn't promise he'd do better next time. Only that if it was serious, Ed would call her.

After a while he got up to finish making the tea she'd abandoned before the water had boiled. Found her a warm pair of his own socks, and put them within her reach together with the cup of tea.

He'd already sat down when she moved to put on the socks. When she'd finished her tea, she got up to begin cooking.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You wanted angst. Are you happy now? Are you?! *cries*


	17. Chapter 17

She found him looking at the corner of her apartment that was dedicated to 'stuff to take home'. It was already at Excess Luggage volume, and she still had two weeks left.

She'd be there for most of the second half of December, and return before New Year. Then on the 4th of January she would fly out to Halifax. Time was getting short. It wasn't as desperate as it would have been if she'd been deployed to the Gulf of Aden for 10 months, but he could still feel it ticking away.

"Would you... if you wanted to come with me, I would like that," she offered diffidently.

It took him a moment to decipher that carefully composed tone and the statement. Visiting her family was akin to announcing serious intentions about the future of their relationship, he knew that much. She sounded like she wasn't sure if that was something he was ready for, just wanted to let him know he was welcome. No expectations.

Sometimes he wondered if they were both being careful to spook the other.

Back when she'd booked the flights she probably hadn't thought she'd be at the point where she might like it if he'd come along. The subject certainly hadn't come up then, and if it had, he wouldn't have felt ready either.

"I already promised I'd work over Christmas, sorry," he said, realising he did actually regret that. She would be away, and he'd wanted to give the people who had somewhere to be, the opportunity to be there. "I can probably arrange for a week in your next leave period though."

She perked up at hearing that he might consider going, but then her face fell.  
"That's March. I don't want to go home in March. Nobody likes each other in March."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Winter's already been forever, but it'll take another two months before thaw properly sets in," she said, shrugging. "It's.. not a great time of year."

He could hear the echoes of unhappy memories, and nodded.  
"Okay, not March then."

"June's much better, though. June is baby bison being born, and finding out if any Grizzlies holed up in your summer cabin. Always exciting." She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, and he realised he very much wanted to go with her, to discover this part of her.

"Sometimes your definition of 'exciting' concerns and disturbs me."

She rose up on tiptoes to kiss him, then whirled away to stir the pot that was on the fire, throwing a grinning "You love it, really," over her shoulder.

He didn't deny it.

"If you let me know what dates work best, I'll book time off," he followed her into the kitchen.

"Yeah?"

He made an affirmative noise and enjoyed watching her cook, all motion and energy. She was singing under her breath, and he couldn't help but smile.

It took a while to realise that they'd just made their first concrete long term plan - well, 7 months ahead, but still. Until now there had only been vague references of a presumed future together, but judging by the excitement thrumming under her skin, she saw this as a significant thing.

Maybe it was.

* * *

 

He'd not been looking forward to the time she'd be in the North. Not that he wasn't used to missing her, but he was now accustomed enough to having her within reach that missing her at this time of year was extra hard. The whole world seemed to be saying he should be gearing up to spend time with family, and the only person he could really count as his own - _wanted_ to count as his own - was with _her_ own family.

She had warned him not to expect long emails or phone calls, and he was embarrassingly relieved and delighted when she started sending him phone photos on the first day after she'd arrived. The first one was a slightly blurry self portrait of her face - with a big grin - framed by a fur hood, against a backdrop of inquisitive bison noses.

He received it in the middle of a briefing for a planned arrest. He didn't normally check his phone during meetings, but he'd been expecting an update about the warrant. Getting the photo instead surprised a chuckle out of him.

"--stealth entry." Ed finished, eyebrows raised, and then the whole team was looking at Greg.

"Sorry. Grace letting me know she arrived safely up North," she said. Given the 4-hour drive from the airport to the ranch, she'd arrived well after he went to bed, so she'd saved it for the morning. "Just wasn't expecting it to look like this."

He held the phone up so the team could see, and grinned at their reactions.

 

The photos continued; two or three per day, sometimes with explanation, but usually without. He enjoyed seeing the faces of her family, the house she'd grown up in, the few shots of the outdoors. Apparently it was cold enough to risk freezing her phone, so there weren't many of those.

Once there was a 30-second video clip of two older women - her mother and grandmother, at a guess - sitting in front of the fireplace, spinning. They were unaware of being filmed, and there was chatter in the background, a small child running through the shot.

The older woman was singing a soft song in bastard French in the rhythm of her treadling. Greg smiled in recognition of the song, but also at the image he knew she longed for. This was the home that tethered her heart, no matter where she went. Everything she created around her was in some way connected to what this video represented.

He tried not to concentrate on missing her, and sent back photos of the team goofing off on the climbing wall, of a nice meal he'd cooked for himself. Even, bending-if-not-breaking regulations, a shot of Ed leading away a handcuffed man in a Santa suit.

_...Santa took hostages. Peacefully resolved. Yes, the puns exactly as terrible as you would imagine._

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have changed seasons. It wasn't winter in the 'Jumping At Shadows' episode, but it is now :-)

Greg asked Dean to call his mother on the way to his house. Last thing he wanted was to worry her - or get accused of kidnapping. From the side of the conversation he could hear, she wasn't thrilled, but Dean calmly explained that it was what he wanted, and promised not to be home late.

Dean looked around the house - the same house he'd lived in until he was six - and Greg tried to see it with his eyes. Not a family house; the house of a man who lived alone and didn't spend much time there. Tidy, because 'taking care of your space' had been one of his getting sober regime rules and he'd never dropped it.

A kitchen in line with Greg's claim of bare-bones cooking, but with a few incongruent details; the fancy rosemary infused olive oil, the herbs Grace grew in his kitchen window.

She didn't have a large footprint in his house - they spent more time together at hers - but there was a basket of craft stuff next to the couch, a simple knit afghan that had appeared without comment, a small pair of knit slippers at the door. He liked that, would keep them around when she was in Halifax. It was nice to be reminded of her that way.

"Does anyone else live here?" Dean asked.

"No, I live alone," he'd said, seeing Dean look at the framed Halloween photos Wordy had given him. One side of the frame showed Grace and him in their crossed-arms, serious faced SHIELD agents look. The other side, taken only seconds later, the pose had relaxed, both of them laughing.

"That's my girlfriend, Grace. She has a place about twenty minutes out."

He felt strangely eager to tell his son about her. As if the relationship was concrete proof that he wasn't the same man the boy's mother had no doubt told him about.  

"Have you been dating her long?"

"About a year and a half, but she was at sea for ten months of them. She's career Navy, a tech."

"Huh."

"She's visiting her family up at Great Slave Lake right now, but I'm sure you would like each other."

Dean studied the photo.

"Does she have kids?"

"No, that.." he hesitated between revealing a private matter and possibly letting his son think she didn't like kids. "She would have liked to, but she couldn't."

He watched Dean think through the implications. No new children in Greg's life, no step family.

"Are you going to marry her?"

He didn't allow himself to startle or hesitate.

"I hope so, yes."

 

"This is weird," Dean finally said, looking around the kitchen while Greg loaded the dishwasher. Studying the duty roster that was on the fridge, the one that was intersected with Grace's calendar.

Last time she'd been at his house she'd filled out some details about her time in Halifax; when she'd be doing her fitness tests, the various safety training courses. She'd also circled the 5th of March - her return day - three times and added a smiley face.

"What is weird?"

"This.. you -- everything," he said, shrugging. "Different from what I expected."

"What were you expecting?"

Dean hesitated, and Greg nodded encouragingly.

"It's okay, you can say it."

Because he thought they needed to have this conversation, acknowledge the issue.

"The things my mom told me..." He trailed off.

"They're probably all true," Greg said, making coffee. "I was an alcoholic, an unfit father, and I put her and you through hell."

"But..." Dean looked around the kitchen, glanced at the schedule, the herbs, the Halloween photo. "And today at your work..."

"What she's told you is based on who I was ten years ago," Greg continued gently. "And much as I hate the cliché 'But I have changed,' ten years is a long time for anybody."

"So you're sober?" And oh, his son had guts, challenging him like that. A wash of pride made him smile.

"Nine years.. No, more like nine and a half now, I think. I found ways to cope with my job, got support."

"Are you still mad at my mother for leaving?"

"I was never angry with her for leaving," Greg said slowly, aware he needed to go careful here. "It was the right thing to do, for the both of you. Maybe even for me, too."

He set the cups on the table and sat opposite his son.

"I was upset that I wasn't allowed to see you at all, not even for supervised visits like the court ordered. And I was angry with myself for only being able to get it together after she'd left, for fucking up my chance to be a father to you."

"Yeah, about.. what I said this morning..." Dean started, but stalled, gesturing helplessly.

"I am glad you had a father, even if it wasn't me," Greg managed, forcing himself to let the emotion show. If there was one person who deserved to know how much this mattered, it was his son.

"I wish it could have been me, but I am glad you have a father. I gave up trying to be in your life because I thought you were better off without me, but there wasn't a day I didn't think of you, didn't miss you."

"But the lawsuit?"

"There were some things that happened here.." like Ed pushing him, and a relationship opening his eyes to who he was now rather than who he had been. "I started to wonder if you knew how much I wanted to see you. If maybe you thought that I just didn't care, so I wanted to at least... fight, I guess, to show you that I hadn't stopped wanting to be in your life."

"By having me court ordered?"

"No, of course I didn't want to force you," he sighed. He'd wanted to know if it was his ex blocking his son from seeing him, or if Dean genuinely hadn't wanted anything to do with him. He decided to leave the boy's mother out of it. "It was the only way available to me. And I'll drop it."

He hesitated, because just because they were talking now, just because they'd had dinner together, didn't mean Dean might want to see him again, didn't mean anything was settled. He couldn't make any assumptions here.

He had a vivid flash of memory of Grace poking him and telling him to stop using his professional skills in a personal conversation. This was not the time for tactical, low risk strategy. This was a time for leading with his heart.

"You don't have to see me if you don't want to. I would never ask you to call me 'dad', Greg is fine, I get that you have somebody who has been your father all this time, in all the ways that matter. And if you want to take his name, then - then you should do that."

He took a sip of coffee, stalling a little. Dean was nodding slowly, and he gathered his courage.

"I would still very much like to have a place in your life. Because I may not be your dad, and there's no way to get those years back, but no matter what, you will always--" _No, don't define him, leave it up to him_ , "-- I will always think of you as my son. And I would very much like to get to know the young man you have become."

He let that sit for a moment, trying not to read Dean's face, pressure him in any way.

"You don't have to decide about that now, okay? It's already a - a really big deal to me that I could talk to you today. And I'm sorry that I had to run out like that and leave you sitting around at the station."

Dean shook himself a little, as if glad of the topic change.

"I think that was good, actually," he said slowly. "The lady - Winnie? - she let me listen in."

Oh. Christ, he was glad he hadn't been aware of that at the time.

"Well, at least you knew I didn't abandon you for donuts," he tried to lighten the mood. He didn't think he'd spoken directly about his son, but the conversation with the 911 operator had probably been telling if you knew the background.

"I didn't know what you did," Dean shrugged. "Thought you were just a beat cop. And I'm - I'm sorry about last year, when you came to Dallas."

That last came rushing out, like he'd lined the words up in his head and just wanted them out.

"You can only work with the information you have," Greg said, because yes, that had hurt like hell, but that didn't mean he thought Dean owed him an apology.

"That's something we say at work. You can't make decisions based on information that you don't possess, and based on what you knew about me, your decision made sense. I am just - just really glad that you were open to learning new information today."

"Yeah. Me too."

* * *

 

He got back from dropping off his son - dropping off his son! As if that were a normal thing, a thing that he might do - feeling too mixed up to sit still. He missed Grace, missed her knack for knowing just the right way of blowing off steam. Be it sitting quietly next to each other, each absorbed in their own activities, or once, memorably, dragging him to go sledding in the park after dark.

She was still up at Great Slave Lake, immersed in her family life, and tonight was Midwinter. From what she'd said it would be a busy night, more celebrated by most of the family than Christmas.

He sent her a quick message anyway, because he had to say it somewhere, acknowledge it somehow, make it real. Maybe if she knew about it, he could convince himself it had actually happened.

_Talked to Dean today_

It wasn't five minutes later when his phone rang. A landline number he didn't recognise.

"Greg Parker."

"Hi!" she sounded out of breath.

"Gracie! I thought you were gearing up for your physical fitness test," he teased.

"Shut up, I am going to ace my PFT like always," she panted, laughing. "I just ran straight across the compound through knee-deep snow."

"I thought you guys had been keeping paths clear?"

"We have, these _are_ the paths. It's just been dropping like it's going outta style. Snow's shoulder high outside of them."

"So why did you run across the compound?"

Mobile reception up there was patchy at best. Good enough for the occasional text message, but not for calls. All the permanent houses had phone lines though. Apparently it was recent, but the latest generation had brought a lot of changes.

"So I could call you from the office instead of the middle of my parents' living room," she said, as if that were obvious. "There are thirty people in the house, and it seemed like this was the kind of conversation that could do without hecklers."

"Yeah... Yeah. Good idea," he said, pacing his living room. "I just--you know--"

She waited him out. He could hear her move around, sounds like maybe she was opening the door of a wood burner, poking at the fire. He could almost picture her in some cabin-style office, kicking off her boots and warming her feet by the banked fire.

"He came to the station. Dean came to the station today," he started. And then the whole story came loose, as if he'd been saving it up. From hearing why his son wanted him to drop the lawsuit, to having to leave him at the station, abandoning him for work just to prove how much he wasn't a father. To the case and how draining it had been, having to sit through the procedure of having taken the fatal shot while knowing Dean had already gone back to his own life.

Seeing the boy - not a boy, almost a man, and such a brave one at that - still there... and wholly unforeseen, getting a chance at having some contact after all.

"I told him about you," he said, not sure if he was laughing or sobbing, or both. "I think maybe he speaks the same language. I offered to get pizza together, but he wanted to cook us pasta."

And for a moment it had crushed part of him, gotten him all tangled up in how his son - his son! - wanted to cook for him, like Greg was the son, was the one needing to be cooked for. But maybe remembering how she communicated without words sometimes had helped, had reminded him how cooking wasn't always about what you thought the other needed, could be about what you wanted to give.

"I am so fucking happy for you, I can't even tell you," she said when he'd concluded his telling. He snorted into a laugh, exhilaration rising to his head, because that was exactly how she sounded excited and unfiltered. "And I miss you. I love my family, but this is the calmest I've been all week."

"I miss you too. I'm glad we could talk for a bit."

"Always. That said, I should probably head back before they get out the searchlights and the rifles and come looking for me."

"I... can't tell if you're serious."

"Don't worry, we haven't heard any wolves in days," she said brightly, so probably not serious. He hoped. "Love you. Goodnight!"

He sat there for a moment, bemused. Pictured her walking through the knee-deep snow across the ranch. She'd said the main paths were shovelled and lit, but still.

Ten minutes later she sent a photo of herself with about twenty family members in the background.

_Promise the wolf thing was a joke. Also, carrying a tazer. See? Safe & sound_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't stop myself from trying to follow along with canon at least a little...


	19. Chapter 19

The Christmas shifts were covered by volunteers from all the SRU teams, with others doing on-call shifts as needed to fill out the amount of available bodies if it came to a crisis.

He had Roley (recently divorced), Sam (no family he wanted to visit), Bastien and Ryker from team 4 (planned to go all-out for New Years so wanted the time in lieu), and Donna Sabine (reasons unknown) for the entire two days.

Ed had signed up, but Greg had made the executive decision to strike that name from the roster and had twisted his friend's arm until he'd promised to go spent the time with Sophie and Clark.

Greg was concerned about Ed's home life. He was pretty sure Sophie hadn't gone to her mother to get away from Ed, but to make it clear he needed to spend more time with his family, and that she wanted him to make the effort instead of backing off further. Greg couldn't fix it for him, but he could deny his friend the excuses not to have to face the issues. No work over the holiday.

Jules did the 24th, Manny from Team 2 filled in the last spot on the 25th.

The holidays were always a crapshoot. It could be entirely quiet all the way through - he had fond memories of a giant tower they'd built of toothpicks and candle wax one year - but it was also a highly emotive time that could bring out extremes in people.

The evening of the 24th brought two relatively minor callouts, both last-minute-holiday shopping related. He couldn't laugh, but he exchanged a few exasperated looks with his team. Nothing like making the minor crisis of not having the right present pale in significance next to the major crisis of pulling a weapon on other shoppers and having to spend the holiday in a cell.

He watched Sam and Ryker lead away the subject.

"Grace has this saying, goes something like 'If you feel like you're sinking, first check if you're not bailing water _into_ your boat,' he sighed into the radio. "Well okay, it's a little more salty when she says it. But it feels like half these people need to hear that a little more often."

"I like it," Roley said. "Shame hearing they have a role in creating their situation would probably escalate most subjects."

"But really..." Jules sighed gustily, climbing down from the display that had been her perch. "I have to wonder how they imagined this would go."

"We shall evaluate this further at the station," Greg said, before somebody could say something impolitic in public. Around them, shoppers were already crowding again, not letting a few heavily armed men stop them from their frenzied search for the right present.

"Copy that, boss," Jules grinned.  

 

* * *

 

"Sergeant Parker?"

"Yeah Dave?" he answered the station-based dispatcher. Winnie would take tomorrow's shift.

"Just received a call from Lori's Diner over on Queen Street East. They say they can have your dinners ready for delivery whenever you'd like them?"

Huh. Traditionally the off-duty personnel chipped in to buy take-out for the people who took the holiday shifts, but that had always been on the 25th.

"Ed Lane arrange this?"

"Not that I know of, sir. And he did leave details for tomorrow night's food."

"Can you ask them who is paying? If it seems legit, we can pick up in twenty. It's on our way to the station."

"Are we looking gift dinners in the mouth?" Donna asked with a grin, loading up the car.

"I'd like to know it actually is a gift before I pick it up."

 

"Sarge, Lori says they pick an emergency service station each year to feed," Dave came back a minute later, "and one of their nightly regulars lobbied for SRU this year. Apparently you talked her son off a roof?"

"Boy on a roof..." he took off his vest and slung it into the back of the car. It was, somewhat depressingly, not a rare occurrence. He could think of four such incidents in the past year alone.

He took a run at it from the other direction. Queen Street East - St Michaels hospital was on that street. Night shifts at the hospital? In which context had he heard that? "That the mother of the basketball kid we talked down?" He snapped his fingers and smacked the fist into his other hand, trying to make the memory snap into place. "Hayward? Hayward, that was their name."

"Wow, ten for ten on your memory, boss," Sam put in. "I was only just coming up with basketball."

"In any case, sounded for real, so I told them you'd be picking up in about twenty minutes," Dave finished.

"Thanks, we're on our way."

 

The diner was packed, and an apron-clad older woman carrying a stack of plates intercepted him before he and Donna could get to the counter.

"Sergeant Parker?"

"That's right."

"One second."

She disappeared into the hectic-sounding kitchen, and a moment later came back with two crates full of styrofoam takeaway containers. Greg and Donna each accepted one.

"Eight Christmas specials. Should be warm, but reheating instructions are on the boxes just in case. Hope you have a quiet shift," she said, gesturing a 'one moment' at a cook  who was calling her from the kitchen doorway.

"Thank you, we appreciate it very much," he said. "Could you tell Mrs Hayward I hope everything is all right with her son?"

"Will do, have a good Christmas!"

 

The ride back to the station was a sweet form of torture, the food smelling up the car and making both their stomachs rumble.

"Man, cool pants _and_ Christmas dinner. The SRU has got it going on," Donna said, looking into the back to make sure the crates weren't shifting as they cornered. "This does _not_ happen at Vice."

"Doesn't usually happen to us either," Greg said, finding himself smiling. "Now if the city could just hang on to that peace-on-earth thing for a day or two, it's going to be a pretty good holiday."

And yeah, he missed Grace and wished they could have spent Christmas together somehow. But she would be coming home soon, and his son had emailed him about meeting up on the 26th, before he and his mother went back to Dallas. And sitting at the briefing room table with the others, discovering that Lori's Christmas Special was both special and generous and included pumpkin pie, swapping the funnier incident stories... (the Santa Claus story was a hit) that was pretty damn good too. 

He remembered to take out his phone and make a photo of the team at the table, busy digging in to the food. Sent it to Grace. A few minutes later he got a reply.

_:-) :-) :-)_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap this is getting long... hadn't really noticed yet. If only I could write so easily on the things I actually want to be writing..


	20. Chapter 20

She came back on the 27th December, with new handmade boots, a duffle bag full of fibre, a freezer box full of bison meat, and a gleam in her eyes. He'd gone to the airport to pick her up, and got kissed right there in the arrivals hall, with the sort of enthusiasm that sent a zing up his spine. She got like that sometimes, like a live wire he couldn't let go off. He wondered if it came from spending time in the one place she considered truly her element.  

"So, you missed me?" She hadn't been that enthusiastic after 10 months away, though to be fair, she'd been exhausted then.

"It was too short to get used to being away," she laughed, "so yeah, I missed you."

 

Later that night they were curled up in bed. Greg was idly playing with the end of her braid, drawing ticklish swirls on her shoulder.

"When you think of us living together, what do you picture?"

She turned over, giving him a raised-eyebrows look.

"The future has been me-alone-in-my-empty-house for so long, maybe I need help forming some alternative images."

Because he was getting used to the idea of moving, selling his house. Perhaps finally having some contact with his son was helping to close off the ties that had kept him there all this time. It felt like a chapter he could close now. If he could maybe form an idea about what came afterward.

After a moment she nodded in understanding, settling back in against his side, head pillowed on his shoulder.  

"There's a table up North that my father made for me. It's this ridiculously huge thing, made of - well, pretty much half of the old tree that used to be in the garden there. It seats about ten people, twelve at a push. He made it back when he still hoped I'd grow out of this Navy phase," he could feel her amused huff of breath, "and come back to marry a local boy and build a house next to theirs. It's been up there ever since, I never lived anywhere I could have it...."

She fell silent for a while, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Maybe she didn't have as clear cut images as he'd thought she would have.

"When I'm just wishdreaming, I think of the kind of house where that table fits. Of a fireplace and a garden and my spinning wheel in the den. Of a kitchen that has space for the big copper pots I inherited from my Gramma. They're proper family pots, you know.. for big meals."

She was silent for a long moment. "Mostly I think of the kind of house and the kind of life where we can invite your team and their families, and Dean, maybe any of my nieces and nephews studying down here, and cook a big meal, and sit around that table... is that weird?"

"No." He kissed her temple. "Not weird at all. That sounds really nice."

"I always wonder if it's some cliché I absorbed from movies, you know? But I've never been able to invite people that way, to host something. I've always been the one getting invited to other people's houses on holidays so I wouldn't be alone..."

God, he knew that feeling. No matter how much he appreciated Ed and Sophie's open invitations and the way they included him, he had a sudden, vivid longing for the place she was painting for him, for the open fireplace and the huge wooden table and for being, for once, the one to invite others into the warmth of his own space.

"How do you feel about dogs?" was what came out of his mouth, which was only tangentially connected to the conversation they'd been having and yet fit exactly in his mental image.

"I grew up with lots of dogs and cats. I feel very good about dogs," she said with a half grin, as if she could see exactly how this fit. She tilted back her head to looked up at him, thoughtful. "You seem like a big dog man. Newfoundlander?"

"OK, that's unnerving."

"I may have seen you look at those Newfies we met in the park last month."

"They're big, and relaxed, and.." And his mental picture of the home they'd share, now he could allow himself to dream about that place, had one laying in front of the fireplace. "Yeah," he shrugged. "I would really like a Newfoundlander."

"I'm used to, like.. stock dog mixes," she said. "We've got herding breeds for the bison work. But you can sell me on any dog breed that basically looks like a bear."


	21. Chapter 21

He'd booked leave for the last few days before she would go to Halifax, and they largely spent that time together, 'taking an advance on snuggles' as Grace put it. Then she packed in an evening, having the whole packing-for-deployment thing down to a science, and the next morning he drove her to the airport. 

It wasn't going to be as long as her deployment, but he still found it much harder to say goodbye. Last time he'd not really expected things to last. Now he couldn't wait for her to come back in two months, couldn't wait for the six slots of 2 months to pass so they could start looking at houses, could really start on that life they were going to have together.

Now that he had come to the point of thinking about what that might be like, what kind of house they might live in, what kind of dog they might get, he found himself impatient.

"Don't forget to drive my car, or pimp it out to a teammate or something," she reminded him. She'd left her car at his house so it wouldn't stand still for two months. He thought he might offer it to Sam for the duration of her absence.

"I won't forget."

He used the hand in her neck to pull her in for a kiss, taking his time, even though they were drawing eyes. She was travelling in fatigues and with a sizeable duffel, and he supposed people were more used to seeing reversed genders in terms of who was leaving and who was staying behind.

He allowed himself the luxury of not caring, even if they were in the middle of the departure hall and neither of them had been teenagers for a long time now. She made a low sound of pleasure that pulled a shiver out of him.

"Let's... Let's pick this back up on March 5," she said when it ended, sounding a little out of breath.

"Yeah. Good idea."

"I need to get to..." She handwaved in the direction of the departure gates.

"I know. Take care. I will see you very soon," he said, pulling her back in to kiss her forehead. She let herself be held like that for a moment, melting into the touch. Then he felt her breathe in, felt her spine straightening. Pulling together the person she would have to be for the next two months. It was a little disconcerting.

She flashed him a smile, grabbed the cart with her things, and broke away, disappearing through the into the security area without looking back.

 

The team knew what he had on his mind when he went to work straight from the airport, but apart from Ed's "Had a good few days?" nobody brought it up. He was aware that there was a concerted effort to keep him distracted throughout the day, and he made more small talk than he normally did in about a week.

He thought it was a little bit much, but he appreciated the support nonetheless. Especially when he received a text message that night.

_Urgh. Feeling a kind of lonely and cut off :-/_

It hadn't really occurred to him until then that while she was used to going away, she wasn't used to going away from.. well, from _him._ Not from who they were together now. When she'd left for her 10 month tour, they had been in a very different place, and a two week visit to her family was hardly the same.

And while he had a team happy to keep his mind on other things, she was in barracks in a place where she didn't know anybody. The NCOs who were based in Halifax would all have houses - and families - off base, not be available for socialising. With the people who lived in the barracks there was typically a big gulf in age, gender and rank. Their preferred forms of socialising also tended to involve alcohol, which Grace preferred not to be part of.  

 _Want a phone call?_   He offered.

_I think that'll make it worse ATM. Need to detach a little first. In a few days? I'll meet the tech NCO team tomorrow, get to know some ppl_

 

The next evening he got

_Oh Christ on a tricycle, the barracks-based techs do karaoke. Be lonely or do karaoke? Karaoke or be lonely? Save me._

_Karaoke. Socialising, Gracie. Go do it._

_You are a terrible person and clearly in league with the Gods of Cheese_

_I have never denied this. Go. Now. Sing something._

About an hour later he got

_My efforts were deemed the cause of widespread eye irritation, and insufficiently cheesy (Great Big Sea, Boston & St John's)_

He looked the song up online and found himself rubbing at his own eyes. Waking up on the day he'd brought her to the airport had pretty much been the both of them trying to pretend it wasn't morning yet. He could just imagine how a heartfelt rendition of that song in her warm voice had yanked a few heartstrings.

_Just completely murdered Alannah Myles. I hope you're ashamed of yourself._

_It's the burden I bear. Have a good night :-)_

 

Communication got more sporadic after that, one or two telegram style messages per day at most.

_Crap. PFT results: passed in my own age band. (Used to pass one lower. Getting creaky. *mope*)_

He sent back:

_Just wait until May and you'll go up an age band, then you're back to passing in a lower one than you're in._

It would be her 40th in May. He knew she had no problem with getting older. This was the woman who used her grey streaks as decoration when she braided her hair. But hip issues ran in her family, and he thought not being able to meet her usual standards in the test had probably confronted her with the fact that a hip replacement might not be as far over the horizon as she'd thought.  

_Thank you, Mr SRU-fitness-requirements-are-stricter-than-yours. You know how to cheer a girl up :-P_

Days turned into weeks, and if it didn't grow any easier, missing her became more familiar. She rarely managed a long email or phone call, but the on-the-fly messages continued.

_Is it bad that I enjoyed the hell out of the escape-from-a-sinking-helo refresher course?_

_Feel like I need a Chief On Tour t-shirt. Yesterday: Hali. Today: Esquimalt. Day after tomorrow: Bahrain_

_At Bahrain. Lots of adverts for diving holidays. Vaguely tempted to go AWOL._

_The word of the day is 'gormless'_

_I swear these guys could not look more clueless if I gave this course via interpretive dance_

_Managed 5 minutes out on deck! In daytime! I-swear-I've-been-in-the-Middle-East tan is coming along._

_I MISS MY MINIONS_

_Pirates are so much cooler in movies, when they don't have molotov cocktails and machine guns_

_You ever feel like there was a glitch in reality and you were the only one to see it? Me: "..so I need you to recalculate the failsafe margin with these new parameters." Utterly serious and professional PO2: "Aye Chief." Then he salutes and moonwalks away. *blinks*_

_Main entertainment on this ship seems to be talking about how much they drank last shore leave, and how much they're going to drink the next one. Yay. Good thing I'm on to the next ship tomorrow._

_Getting transferred to another ship by helo makes me feel so important. Just needs some movie music. Maybe an explosion. OK, maybe not an explosion._

_Think I'm going to like it here. Today the Weapons Control room team did a spontaneous and perfect rendition of the Lumberjack song. Can I adopt them?_

_Please? Radhi makes a mean curry, or so I'm told._

_(They're housebroken)_

_Aww, I like the Lumberjacks, I don't wanna go to the next ship._

_Urgh, lonely again. This ship-hopping thing is definitely not a perk of the job_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woe, have I lost my one and only reader? :-)


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, _that_ episode gave me anxiety. Maybe I get too invested in fictional worlds.

After the brutal day of assessments and the drama that had followed, he found himself driving to her apartment on autopilot. It took until he didn't see her car to remember she wasn't there, and he shook himself. In the nearly six weeks she'd been gone he hadn't come here - she had everything set up so the house didn't really need checking on.

Well, now he was already there he might as well check everything was okay. He wasn't in a hurry to get to his own place and let the silence echo back the harsh reality of the things he'd heard that day.

Her place was cold and quiet, but it still held the familiar fibre scents, and he felt a little better anyway. She'd left it fairly tidy before they'd left for the airport, readied the stove for a fire. She had called it her 'gift to future self' to not come back to a chaos.

He found the notepad she'd abandoned on the coffee table. She'd been writing on it the night before she flew out, but ended with an irritated scratching out, closed the cover of the notepad and dropped it in favour of snuggling up to him on the couch. He looked at it now.

She'd printed it neatly, nothing like her usual scrawl, and from the wording he wondered if she'd intended to leave it at his house. It did look like the sort of list one might put on a fridge.

List Of Things To Try After A Crappy Day

\- Go to the shelter. Hang out with the shy cats.  
\- Or borrow a dog and go for a long walk  
\- Go to my place. Light a fire. Put on a movie or music. Sleep there  
\- Make something  
\- Go somewhere you've never been before  
\- Park your car in a remote place, close windows and shout really loudly  
\- Call my cell and leave me a voicemail. If you just want to dump, you can tell me at the start that you want me to delete unheard and I will.  
\- Bake bread. Knead the dough until your arms ache, the bread will only get better for it.  
\- Check my mail for a DVD sent by my cousin. He said he'd send me the footage of the Bison Empire he's shot on his GoPro cam.  
\- ~~Build something out of snow and then play Godzilla~~

 

He choked up a little reading it, caught between a laugh and something like a sob. Some of the ideas were funny, some were useful, but all of them reminded him of how much she cared. She'd written this list for him, and then, knowing her, gotten self-conscious about it and dismissed the idea.

He took the advice anyway. Lit the fire. Took a long shower with the shower gel that smelled like her. Then sat by the fire and called her.

She was at sea - he wasn't sure which ship, but given the recent messages about pirates, probably near Somalia - so out of mobile reception. If things were going by the last he'd heard, she'd be flying to Halifax base in a week, so she'd see his message then, and he could ask her not to listen to it.

He hadn't really intended to talk long, but it was half an hour later when he put down the phone, feeling perhaps not lighter, but like the tight band around his chest had eased off a little.

 

Work was rough, everybody a little off-balance without Ed and tense with the knowledge they were under a microscope. It was hard to stop that knife-edge feeling from filling his entire universe, and he clung to the thought that she would be back soon, that she would help him have work and a life instead of a worklifework.

Getting messages like the one he got a few days later didn't help.

_Yes I am on the Fredricton but I WAS NOT ON THE DOWNED SEA KING. Recovered 2 ppl, 3 dead,1 still MIA. Fucking pirates_

The evening news had a short piece on renewed tension with pirates around the Horn of Africa; a Sea King helicopter from the HMCS Fredricton had been taken down just off the coast of Somalia by anti-aircraft missiles.

He was already struggling with the feeling that his entire life hung by a thread; getting reminded that she wasn't necessarily safely in a control room somewhere didn't help.

 

Her schedule had been to conclude the last course at the end of February, fly back to Halifax for a week of reports and debriefing, and start her leave on the 5th. He'd known not to get too attached to that schedule, given that everything was 'subject to the requirements of' and liable to change. It was still a blow when she sent a message on the 27th.

_Sorry, it's not looking good for the 5th :-( Ship's been deployed, not sure how/when they can get me off._

Then the next day:

_Fucking pirates_

It went quiet for a few days. He thought it was even odds if she was run off of her feet or if the publicly available internet was down and she couldn't communicate.

Then on the 3rd of March he got a self-shot photo - dusty cammies, windblown wisps of hair framing her sunburnt face, looking like she hadn't slept in days - with a _Djibouti Airport_ sign behind her.

His enquiring message didn't get an answer, so the next day he gave in and called the Halifax base contact number she'd left. The Petty Officer on the other side assured him that Chief Gaudin was en route to Halifax, and that he couldn't comment on when she would be able to go on leave, apart from that it would not be the 5th.

 

At 5:27 On the morning of the 5th he startled awake as his phone started buzzing, and received a whole stream of messages at once.

_So, Djibouti. Took 3 days on standby, 2 ships & 3 helo rides to get us here. Now on standby for a flight to Dubai._

_Nope, not Dubai. Next hope is the flight to Istanbul tomorrow morning_

_You're not receiving these messages, are you? Connection seems dodgy. Anyway, flying with Colonel Mustard, AKA my CO's CO. Seriously weird. I think we're bonding over terrifying airport food._

_Hurrah, Istanbul. We're going to try for a flight to Vienna from here. Then London. Fingers crossed_

_So fucking exhausted. I thought I'd be able to sleep at airports if I got tired enough. I was wrong._

_Travelling in uniform, what joy. Guy at airport: "Fucking American soldiers coming here, go home!" - Col. Mustard: "Canadian Navy, thank you, and we are bloody well trying to!"_

_London! Am fucking shattered, but we're definitely on the Air Canada flight. Hali tonight, home prob the 9th. Really sorry :-/_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr! People keep telling me that's where it's at for fandom. You can find me at [primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com](http://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/) \- do say hi if you're around, I feel lonely in my fannishness :-)


	23. Chapter 23

It wasn't a great day, and he knew his own mood didn't help. Jules gave him a significant look when he interrupted the subject with an impatient huff of breath. Greg took a slow, deep breath and pulled together his focus.

After shift had ended Jules dragged the team out for a drink, not so subtly trying to distract Greg from the empty night ahead.

He was trying to lose himself in the competition about weirdest witness interviews - Spike had most of those in the Santa hostage situation, so he was winning by miles - when his phone buzzed.

He looked automatically, saw a photo of his own front door, and shot to his feet.

"Boss?"

"We got an emergency?"

"No, it's fine. Just have to go."

He put his phone on the table while he put on his jacket, and Jules leaned in to look.

"Grace?"

"Yeah, yeah. See you tomorrow."

 

The house looked quiet and dark when he drove up, no indication that anybody had been there. He had a flash of hesitation while he parked - surely she wouldn't have sent that photo as a joke? No, he could not believe she would get his hopes up. Her last message had sounded frustrated and genuinely regretful. It had taken time, but he finally trusted that she missed him just as much as he missed her.

He came in through the door from the garage, and inside there was no sign of anybody until he walked through to the living. Her duffel had been dropped just inside the door, and it looked like she'd just crashed on the couch. She was in the travel-worn fatigues he suspected she'd worn since that Djibouti Airport photo, and she hadn't even gotten so far as to take off her combat boots.

She had the knitted blanket bunched up in her arms, her face half tucked against it. What he could see if her looked beyond exhausted, with bags under her eyes that would need more than a good night of sleep to fade.

He stopped herself from going to her immediately, not wanting to jolt her awake. She would probably still be primed to shipboard wakeups, going from a dead sleep to upright and asking for status updates in less than three seconds.

He turned on some low lighting and went into the kitchen to make tea, hoping the familiar sounds and scents would gradually wake her.

When he returned her eyes were open, and she looked endearingly confused, as if she had no idea how she'd gotten where she was..

"Hey babe," he smiled, crouching down next to the couch so he could bring his face close to hers. Drank in the sight of her, because she was exhausted and disoriented and sunburnt and unwashed, but she was _there_ , she was right there in his house.

"Hey... I did come here. Wasn't sure..."

"Thought you dreamt it?"

"More like hallucinate," she mumbled, rubbing at her face. "I think I'm technically non compos mentis."

"Can't sleep at airports, huh?"

"Too many people," she sighed, pressing into the hand he cupped around her jaw. Reminded him of an affectionate cat. Made him smile. "I get all twitchy."

"Come on, let's get you showered and into an actual bed," he smiled, kissing her forehead. "You'll feel much better."

"Mm."

She let him help her up, her movements slow and awkward, and she leaned against his chest, arms wrapping around him.

"Hi. Missed you," she said into his chest.  

"Missed you more than you know," he answered, resting his chin on her hair for a moment. Put his hand in the nape of her neck. "Come on, let's shower."

"I'm gross," she said agreeably, body pliant as he steered her toward the stairs.

"How come you didn't have to go to Halifax today?"

"Um..."

"Are you AWOL?" he thought to ask, rather belatedly. He would never have thought she'd do something so career endangering, but she was also in a far from rational state of mind. And if her flights were meant to take her to Halifax via Toronto, she might have just left the airport instead of getting on the connecting flight.

"What?" she frowned at him as he began to peel her out of the fatigues.

"Did you get permission to come home today? At Hali base they told me you would need to come there for a few days first."

"Oh, right," she mumbled.

He switched on the shower, and when the water had warmed, gently pushed her to go inside. She just stood in the spray.

"Well? Permission?"

"I was travelling with brass," she said, not very audibly amidst the shower sounds, but he had good lipreading skills. "Colonel Mustard gave me permission as long as I do the reports this week."

"Is he really called that?" Greg asked, smiling.

"Navy. We don't have Colonels," she mumbled, yawning. "He's really a Commander."

"Shame. Should have joined the army."

"He hears that a lot..."

He finished undressing himself and got in the shower too, smiling when she leant into him. He washed her hair, feeling strangely honoured that she'd come to him, that she trusted him enough to let him see her like this. That she wasn't worried he would think less of her.

He had no doubt that if the situation really required it, she would be able to pull herself together and function for a while longer. It did something with him to know that she didn't think it was necessary, that she was content to put herself into his hands.

When they were finished in the bathroom he wrapped her in the biggest towel he had and changed the sheets on the bed. He'd changed them a few days ago, but the crisply clean sheets thing was one she'd said was part of the joys of coming home. Apparently ship's bedding was scratchy. It was something that was easy enough to indulge.

He gave her one of his old SRU t-shirts, grey and soft from having been washed so often, and she made a low sound of appreciation when she slid under the sheets.

He was still surprised she'd come to his house. Even if she didn't have the need to decompress and be on her own for a day or so, he would have thought that automatic pilot would have taken her to her own flat. He would have understood that, and would have tried not to feel hurt. She'd come to his house instead, to the place he knew she didn't like very much. He wasn't sure what that should tell him.

It was only just gone 6 PM, and he knew he shouldn't let himself sleep now, but he gave in and joined her anyway, needing the closeness for a while. He could get up to eat once she was asleep, get a book up here or something.

She wrapped herself around his side and murmured something into his shoulder. It took him a moment to recognise it as a sleepy 'Can I keep you?'  

He laughed silently, pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Yeah, Gracie. You can."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm making my writing timeline catch up with my viewing timeline here. _Run, Jamie, Run_ was the last I watched. Got some story to cram in before the team changes. 
> 
> Yay for people finding me on [tumblr!](http://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/)


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know. Seriously, this story is totally doing its own thing and I'm just the one pushing keys on a keyboard.

Grace cursed and closed her laptop with a little more force than necessary.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just.." she blew out a frustrated breath. "just my family pretending my job doesn't matter. They want me to start a shop here. Had I mentioned that? Because they want me to start a shop here and they want me to do it sooner rather than later. Apparently I should just do it during my month leave, or something."

He'd already caught that her family had never been a fan of her joining the Navy. Part of it was that it had taken her away from the family home - though she had been looking for a way to leave, and would have found one regardless. But part of it sounded like an aversion of government and authority. They didn't like her working for 'the man'. Probably wouldn't much like that he was a cop, either.

He supposed that up there they didn't have much to do with outside authority; they mostly fended for themselves, and the wariness could be partly cultural. The government hadn't always exactly done right by her people, and the especially the older generations would still have that in mind.

"I suppose at least they're no longer telling me directly I should quit," she sighed. "Just implying that everything else is more important."

"Would they expect you to work for free?"

She wrinkled her nose.

"They'd give a starting investment for the space, and stock, but a salary would require some negotiation. They're working on a very different sort of economy up there, so they don't have much of a concept of what life down here costs. Once the shop turned a profit it'd be easier." She thought for a moment. "To be honest, they'd probably expect me to invest my time for free as long as the Navy is still paying me."

He supposed that wasn't much different from the garments she knitted for selling via the webshop. Family pitched in.

"If they want it set up sooner rather than later, you could hire somebody to manage the shop," he suggested. "As long as they weren't expecting that to happen for free."

She blew out a breath, shaking her head.  
"Managing? I wouldn't even know how to find a space."

"Wordy's wife, Shelley? She used to work in real estate. She'd probably help you do research."

She made an acknowledging sound.

"Suppose I might as well do the preliminaries, and breach the idea of hiring somebody. It's not that they can't pay," Grace finally shrugged, confirming his idea that it wasn't that there wasn't money available, that they were just insular and used to only dealing with family. "The idea would just need a careful intro. If they're serious about getting things going, they might go for it. If not, they might at least stop bugging me about doing it."

 

Greg heard nothing much more about the shop idea until Wordy asked him in the locker room a few days later.

"So, Shelley is helping Grace find a space to set up a shop?" Wordy said. "I thought she was going to be working in Halifax for another year or so."

"She's got that rolling? I hadn't realised," Greg said. Which was true; he'd offered to put the women in touch, but Grace had said she had Shelley's contact details from a thank you note the other woman had sent, and that she preferred to play it directly. "I think it's mostly research for her family at this point."

 

"So when are you planning to tell Shelley you want her to run the shop?" he asked that evening.

"At some point," Grace said brightly. "She has lots of good ideas. I think she'd be great."

"Does she know?"

"I thought I'd ease into that," she smiled. "Let my family get to know her first. She's been skyping with my niece about possible locations."

"And then when they approve, spring the idea on her?"

"I didn't want to get her all hopeful when the family might balk at the idea of putting an outsider in charge," she made a face. "This is new ground. But Shelley's being really helpful in backing up my niece about the business plan, and I think if I promise to be involved during my leave they might go for it."

"Backing up your niece?"

"My uncle has this image of a really exclusive shop that sells only Gaudin-made stuff. He grew up with the idea that handmaking was for poor people who couldn't afford to buy stuff, so he's still kind of out to spite that idea. My niece has actually studied business development and has a much more workable plan, but until now she didn't get much traction up there. Shelley's opinion seems to be helping up there."

"What is the plan, then?"

"The whole exclusive, expensive thing doesn't fit with the family atmosphere at all. We're a community of makers, and my niece has this idea to get the shop to reflect that. Carry our bison wares, but also some more affordable yarn and other craft things, sell kits so people can make things themselves, give workshops, have a sessions where people can come in and craft, that kind of thing. Make it the kind of place where you want to hang out and drink tea and bring your friends along."

"That does sound a little more realistic."

"It has the added advantage that it isn't incompatible with having the girls over after school, or her youngest during the day. She mentioned that her mother in law likes babysitting and that she knits, so..."

"You have this all thought out."

"I tend to think ahead too far for other people," she said with a grimace. "It'd be pretty weird if I started suggesting that she could run the shop and get her mother in law in on it too. So I'm hoping it's an idea that will occur to her without me bringing it up. It might help that my niece has her baby in the office with her most days, with my sister there to help watch him."

He nodded. From what he'd heard it wouldn't occur to anybody up there that somebody would put her child into daycare to run a shop. Grace had grown up playing in a dedicated area of the fibre workshop. When she'd been older, she'd done her schoolwork there while watching over her younger siblings. Kids grew up right in the middle of the operation, and there were always relatives around to watch over them if their parents were busy.

 

Despite what Grace claimed was a gradual introduction, two weeks after she'd come home, Wordy took him aside.

"Boss?"

"Yeah Wordy?"

"This job your girlfriend offered my wife..."

"Yeah?" He hadn't actually known they'd proceeded to that stage, though he hadn't seen her the night before.

"That have anything to do with what was said during the psych evals?"

"What? Of course not," Greg startled. "They're confidential, you know I would never breach that."

It was perhaps true that the thought of Wordy's money worries had crossed his mind when he'd suggested Shelley for some research work, but Grace didn't know that.

"No, I know that," Wordy said. "Just.. I don't know."

Greg wondered if Wordy thought it was charity, and realised Grace had probably seen that coming. It explained why she'd largely left him out of it.

"Is she taking the job?"

"We're talking about it. Between my mother and Shelley's parents there'd probably be enough help with the kids. I'm just not sure about this idea to have the baby in the shop, even with somebody else there to help look after her. Wouldn't it be disruptive?"

"From what I know of her family, it would never occur to them to let the baby be looked after at home," Greg said. "That's just how they work, apparently. Grace says she practically grew up between the carding machines."

"Hmm."

 

Not three days later the papers were signed and the building had been acquired.

Greg was a little baffled at the choice to buy even a cheap building, given that they didn't know how the shop would run, but apparently the location was perfect. With the scope of the renovations that were being planned he supposed selling it on wouldn't be an issue.

Grace said that was just how the family thought. Renting was a waste - pour energy into something that's your own.

"How did I never notice that you are a marvel of fast-track organisation?" he said in surprise.

"Have you ever seen me organise anything more involved than dinner before now?" she grinned. "The slow part was letting my niece play things out up North. We already had our eye on the property, so once that was sorted out and Shelley was in.."

"When are you getting keys?"

"Monday. And my brother and two nephews are arriving Monday or Tuesday, depending on how the drive down goes. So um... I might want to spend some more time at your place the next few weeks while they're invading my house?"

"Of course." As if she needed to ask. "They're driving down?"

"They're bringing stock, some furniture for the shop, and it's easier to have a truck down here for hauling building materials. Plus, between the three of them the drive is a breeze."

He wouldn't have called a 50-hour drive in one weekend a breeze even if it was with 3 people, but he thought he was getting the hang of how things worked up there.

"Are they bringing your table?"

"I'm thinking about that. It'd look cool in the shop until we..." she made a vague gesture, suddenly finding her spinning wheel very interesting.

"Until we buy a place together," he finished for her, realising he would have to lead on that subject. She had been well warned away from it.

"Mm. One of my uncles will want to send some of his furniture to sell as well, so I'd just have to be very clear the table isn't for sale."

"Do you have a planned opening date?"

"Don't know how long the renovation will take," she shrugged. "Unless there's some sort of huge delay, it'll be while I'm in Hali," she said regretfully. "We'll never manage inside of the two weeks until I leave, and it would be stupid to delay until I got back."

 

* * *

 

"Hey, you want to come over and meet the building crew?" There were male voices in the background, and she sounded like she was grinning, happy and excited. That alone was enough for him to say yes. Not that he wouldn't have said yes anyway - they'd booked tickets for a week-long visit in her next leave period. If he could meet some people in advance that would make the visit easier on him.

 

The door was opened by a large man with a crewcut. He was in worn jeans and a faded T-shirt from a Yellowknife bar, and he had wide cheekbones, the same Native looks that were all over Grace's face.

"Hi, you must be Grace's brother," Greg offered his hand. "Greg Parker."

"So you're Greg," the answer was, and they looked each other up and down.

" _Really_ , Armand?" he heard Grace call from inside the flat. "I'm pretty sure people only do this in movies!"

Greg took that cue and let his posture relax, projecting that he really, really wasn't worried about this guy, and looked back. He was about 30. Tall and solid, the kind of functionally muscled that suggested little gym time but a lot of heavy manual labour. His teeth were a little crooked. The buzzcut revealed a long, faded scar on the side of his head.

"I'll make this real simple," he finally said quietly. "You hurt her, I'll hurt you. Clear?"

"Look, I get the brother thing, I really do," Greg said, calm and affable without backing down, refusing to be intimidated by the guy looming over him. "But I believe your sister has the good judgement to avoid dating people who need to be threatened into treating her well."

The man held his eyes for a long moment, face utterly impassive.

"Gracie, I thought you said he was a cop," he finally called into the flat, not taking his eyes off of Greg. The corner of his mouth twitched a little.

Greg repressed his own grin of recognition. Grace could be that mercurial; it was striking to see the family resemblance.

She'd come up behind her brother and poked him in the ribs until he twitched to the side enough to let her through.  
"He is, he's just also a verbal ninja," she said sweetly. "Hello love," she rose on tiptoes to kiss him hello. "Welcome to the madhouse."

She turned back and made shooing gestures at the man, who'd been watching.

"This is my little brother, Armand" she said when they were all in the living, indicating the big guy, who grinned. "And my nephews, Remy and Martin. Guys, this is Greg."

The teenager indicated with Remy was in the kitchen, kneading something. He gave a wave with a dough-covered hand. Martin was cross-legged on the floor next to a disassembled piece of machinery, and gave Greg a distracted nod of acknowledgement. He looked to be in his early twenties. Both younger men were lighter of complexion, with curly brown hair.

 

Later that evening they were all sitting around the table, pouring over the spread-out building plans of the shop property. Grace had some photos too, and they were talking about how they wanted the back space divided. The plan was to separate it into a meeting room that could be used for workshops, and a small studio, with a kitchenette and a bathroom. Stock would go upstairs.

The current layout wasn't ideal, but Greg didn't think he would have spent this much effort renovating before they shop was even known to run. Given the available help though, he supposed it made sense to do the work up front.

It was an older building, narrow and deep, with living space above it that judging by the photos hadn't been lived in in the past 20 years. The plan was to get the shop up and running, and then start on making that useable as art studio and workshop space. It would depend on how long things took, because the men would need to be back on the ranch by calving season.

 

Greg got up to get another drink and stayed in the kitchen entrance for a few minutes, observing them. Remy was the talker of the three, but even at 17 he had a sort of maturity most 17-year olds Greg knew didn't.  Martin was quiet, only adding suggestions about plumbing and electric works when they were appropriate, but he was planning something ambitious with touch screens showing video of the bison ranch.

Armand was surprisingly soft-spoken now he'd dropped the intimidation tactics. He was clearly in charge of the project, asking Grace about her plans for the shop and translating them into practical construction plans.

Grace seemed free with them, talking fast and with more hand gestures than she usually did. Less reserved than he'd ever seen her in company.

It was clear they were trying to let him in on the conversation. She'd mentioned at some point that at home they spoke English with words from a couple of other languages mixed in, mostly bastard French. They were making an effort to stick to English now, but he still couldn't always follow, because there were a lot of references he didn't get. He still hadn't worked out what Big South was, just that Grace wanted the studio to look like that.

"Are you profiling my family?" she said softly, coming into the kitch to wrap an arm around his waist.

"Maybe a little," he admitted.

She smiled up at him. "Is it helping?"

He made a hand-waggling 'maybe' gesture.

"Let me help you out, then," she said. "Armand is our construction worker. He's in charge of repairing the summer houses after thaw sets in, and he's also working to convert the ones that aren't too far off the main paths into year-round housing. He also built the cabin in Yellowknife - we have a little place there so we have a place to sleep when people make the drive into town. This time of year there's nothing much to do for him, so he just ends up doing odd jobs for whoever needs something done."

He nodded in acknowledgement.

"It's great to see him fired up for a project - he's been down lately. His girlfriend broke up with him last year, and it's hard meeting new partners up there. Especially ones that are willing to immerse themselves in the bison empire."

"Martin helps him with the construction. He's followed a mechanic course, and he's also our designated computer expert. I can't stop him from taking apart anything that squeaks or clacks." she gestured at what he now realised was an old manual fibre carding machine. She'd picked it up from craigslist at some point, but it hadn't worked well.

"Remy is still working on his high school courses, and he helps my father in the bakery. He really wants to become a vet. He's never been away from home, so I think was eager to see what it's like down here."

Greg nodded. From what she'd said the latest generation wasn't automatically assumed to stay on the ranch anymore, and their schooling was given more priority. A college education was a lot less out of range than it had been for Grace. Even so, becoming a vet was ambitious.

"But really, it's March, winter's been forever up there, and I think they jumped at the chance to spend a few weeks somewhere thaw has already started," she grinned fondly.

Greg imagined the remaining family members hadn't been too sad to see three restless young men out of the house for a while.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure Armand got that scar in a super embarrassing snowmobile accident when he was a teenager, and if he gives Greg too much shit, Grace will totally tell that story.


	25. Chapter 25

Greg and Wordy put in an evening or two when extra hands were needed, but the Gaudin men put in good work and the shop space was gutted in days, then began to take shape soon enough. It wasn't going as fast as it would have if contractors had been hired, because 'time is money' was a concept clearly not known or applied, but it was coming along. The men also enjoyed the city - a little too much, according to Grace. He caught the echoes of an argument about alcohol intake and seeing more of the city than the inside of the same bar.

She asked him for help with a 'Things to do in Toronto' list, and he in turn asked his team. Sam in particular knew a lot of places that had live music, which turned out to be popular with the three men.   

 

Grace helped them, or spent her time hunting down potential stock. Large boxes of yarn and craft materials started to appear. One day she and Shelley drove down to an Alpaca farm to talk about a partnership. Apparently the only reason that he didn't have a baby alpaca in his garden that night was because the car had been too full of boxes of stock to fit it in. He was then subjected to at least ten minutes of youtube videos of baby alpacas, until he was willing to concede that they did make very cute noises.  

He reminded her occasionally that she was on leave and would go back to being run off of her feet at work soon enough. She slept at his place while 'the boys' had invaded her flat, so he saw her every night, but he was all too aware of the approaching departure date. Two months of absence seemed disproportionately long against this rapidly disappearing month of having her.

He made sure to make time for some days of urban exploring and hiking. One planned hike turned into a building snow-fort day instead, because they'd gotten talking about construction techniques in the car on the way there. The thaw snow was just right, sticky and packable, and despite not venturing more than 200 metres from the car, it was a great day.

 

The new internal walls in the shop space were up and the plumbing and electricity were well underway by the time Grace needed to return to Halifax. To Greg's silent frustration it wasn't any easier saying goodbye this time - in fact, the reports about new violent ship hijackings and heavier weaponry made him feel more reluctant than ever to let her go.

She might not be going into battle, that didn't mean she was safe, and two months was going to be a very long time.

He reminded himself that quitting wasn't an option to her just as quitting the SRU didn't feel like an option to him, and firmly stamped down on his reluctance. Brought her to the airport, kissed her goodbye, and went home to dig out the rock tumbler kit Dean had reminded him off in his latest email. He and Grace had picked up some interesting rocks on one of their latest hikes, and maybe it would be nice to have a project.

 

To his relief she was kept in the country this time, and she complained about boring meetings and training committees. He tried to be sympathetic, but mostly he was just relieved she wasn't in a helicopter near pirates with Stingers.

The shop came along. He was aware of a lot of communication back and forth over what it should look like on the inside, but there wasn't much reason for him to visit regularly. The next time he did, three weeks into her two month stretch and just after Ed had returned to the team, the whole place was full of uneven timber poles and rough-sawn planks. Some of it had the bark still on.

He cautiously asked if the planned opening date was still in three weeks. The wooden flooring was finished, and the longest wall had been stripped down to its original red brick. It looked great, but there was a lot of work still to be done, and the guys weren't really used to working against a deadline.

It didn't help that there were no plans on paper - Armand was, to put it mildly, a freestyle kind of builder and carpenter. The closest thing to a work plan Greg could discover was 'Gonna make it like the fibre storage shed we have at home.'

 Armand just chuckled at his expression and told him to come back in a week.

 

He did, and the timber had been turned into a wall-filling rack for wicker baskets. The wood had been sanded down a little and oiled, but it had kept its charm. Greg admitted to being impressed.

Shelley and her mother were planning the opening while Wordy, having a week off before he started at Guns & Gangs, spent some time being a fulltime dad.

Grace had known she wouldn't be able to make the opening. The two-on/one-off time arrangement with the Navy meant that all her time off went into the one month. She technically didn't have free weekends, and if they didn't work her every weekend while she was ashore, she did have to be available and they often used the weekend as travel time.

 

It was unexpectedly hard to get used to not having Wordy on the team. He'd never been in the foreground much, but he'd been part of the bedrock of the team to Greg. Wordy was the level-headed guy who didn't need any handholding and thought on his feet and was always exactly where you needed him when you needed him. He could also bust through a door like nobody's business, and he'd balanced out Ed's more macho moments with a few well-placed words.

Greg was glad that he had something good to look forward to in Guns&Gangs, and that he would probably be around the shop often enough that they'd find it easy to keep in touch.

The whole team was still figuring out their new centre of gravity. Raf had big shoes to fill indeed.

 

Grace called on the night before the opening. She was still ashore, and it was an amazing luxury that her cellphone worked and they could talk privately and whenever they liked.

"So, I'm still flying to Esquimalt tomorrow, but I talked the transportation PO into giving me a layover in Toronto," she said. "I wanted a night, but this is at least something. I should arrive at about 1230 tomorrow and I need to be back at the airport for a 1920 flight to Victoria."

"That's great! Are you okay with going straight to the shop? Should I bring clothes?"

"Have I ever told you how much I appreciate it that you always bring me and pick me up?" she said after a moment, sounding like she was smiling.

"Do we have to have that conversation about low expectations again?" he asked. At some point he'd gotten weary of her no-expectations stance in the relationship, and said so. He knew she'd spent years taking the bus, and hadn't wanted him to feel pressured, but getting surprise and thanks every time he did something perfectly normal for her hadn't exactly made him feel great.

"No, I just mean..." she yawned, and he could almost picture her handwave, as if she was trying to pluck words from the air. "I just really like it. Makes the whole airport thing so much nicer when I know you're waiting for me."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, watching more episodes and trying to keep this story vaguely canon compliant. With the exception of Marina, who I will be cheerfully ignoring because a) her dating Greg obviously doesn't fit into this little universe, and b) even if I hadn't already written him in a relationship, a negotiator dating somebody who was a hostage in a recent crisis is a REALLY TERRIBLE IDEA and Greg knows it and c) it appears I have written a healthier relationship for him than canon did. Huh.


	26. Chapter 26

"You're a public safety hazard," he told her seriously, trying to keep his eyes on the road. "Has anybody ever told you that?"

"Only that one time I organised makeshift corridor bowling on the _Toronto_ ," Grace said cheerfully, unbuttoning her BDU shirt and digging around in the bag of clothes he'd brought for her. "The ship's roll added an interesting extra dimension to the game."

He snorted a laugh, because he could just picture that.

She waited until there were no cars close to them, and then quickly stripped off her plain black baselayer and put on the top he'd packed for her.

"This isn't very traffic safe, you know."

"It is if you just keep your eyes on the road."

She kicked off her combat boots and dumped them in the back seat. Wiggled out of her BDU trousers.

He saw a glimpse of skin from the corner of his eyes and tried very hard not to look.

"Christ," he muttered to himself, eyes locked on the road. It wasn't like he didn't have perfectly good self control. He just hadn't seen her in five weeks and she had that energy thrumming under her skin that made him want to grab hold of her and not let go until he had conveyed exactly how much he'd missed her.

She planted a bare foot on the dashboard and pushed herself up so she could shimmy into a pair of leggings. His brain stuttered to a halt at the image of her toes. Toenails. Painted toenails. Purple.

"Really? You, nailpolish?" he said.

"Hey, I make really long days stomping around in combat boots!" she defended earnestly. "When I take 'em off at the end of the day it just makes me happy to have pretty toes. Gotta find your femininity where you can."

Greg idly wondered if Jules ever felt like that, like she had to carve out space for the parts of herself she couldn't be at work. She probably had in the beginning; he remembered that she'd worked a lot harder to be 'one of the guys' when she'd first entered his team. Being able to go home at the end of the day probably helped, and growing comfortable with her place on the team. They had reshaped themselves a little around her, too - certain subjects had quietly disappeared from conversation, and he knew Eddie had made an effort to make her feel included.

Grace pulled on one of her short knitted dresses and put both her bare feet on the dash, stretching out a little. Even when she was completely dressed he still found it detrimental to his ability to concentrate on traffic.

"So who do we know for sure is coming?"

"Your brother and nephews, Shelley, Wordy, the kids, assorted grandparents. My team, plus whoever they could think of that might be interested," he answered. Everybody had declared themselves up for supporting the venture, more for Wordy and Shelley's sake than for Grace. "Ed and Sophie are dropping by as well with Isabella."

Ed had only been back a couple of weeks. Greg counted himself damn lucky to be able to keep his friend on the team in a way Ed's marriage could withstand.

"And I think Wordy said that Shelley invited her cousin - apparently she saw how their little girls wrapped your brother around their fingers and decided she needed to matchmake."

On hearing that he was the brother of 'the bison lady' the girls had demanded a story, and Armand had immediately sat down with them and told them one. It had been more exciting that Grace's storytelling, full of big gestures and tense silences and interesting voices.

Greg had been there that evening, and had exchanged an amused look with Wordy about the least likely babysitter they could have thought of. It was clear that Armand felt ready for a family of his own, and Greg thought he would make a pretty great father.

Despite their slightly rough start Greg had come to like Armand, who was a far gentler man than their initial meeting had suggested, and smart too - if seriously undereducated by Greg's standards. He wondered if this was how Grace would have been if she'd stayed with her family. Armand seemed to be enjoying his stay in the city, but he was very much rooted up North.

He'd told Greg about the police in Yellowknife, which had a tendency to look to the Gaudin men - some of the younger ones drove the four hours into town on the weekend sometimes - whenever there was a bar fight or any kind of trouble. From the sounds of it they were of the 'Put them in jail for a night first, ask questions later' variety. Strong and insular as the family-community sounded, Greg wasn't really surprised the local police ran into closed ranks and didn't know how to handle them.

It also explained why the man had tried to bait him on their first meeting, and why he'd dropped it so quickly once Greg had reacted different from the expected.

"Aww, she's setting him up? That's sweet. Hope she hasn't told him, or he's gonna get all awkward."

 

Her phone beeped, and she snorted an unladylike laugh when she checked it.

"Vicky says I'm famous on the internet," she grinned. "This morning some guy took a photo of me knitting at the airport, and we talked for a bit. Apparently he's some kind of popular travel blogger, because he put the photo on his website and now it's all over the place."

They were waiting at a red light, and she held the phone so he could see it. It was a striking shot. Her in fatigues, silhouetted against one of the big airport viewing windows. Combat-booted feet propped up on her duffel bag. Intense focus on an intricate knitting project.

He could see why the photo appealed to people, because she didn't look like somebody you'd expect to be in the military, and you didn't expect somebody in the military to be knitting a lace shawl.

"What does the caption say?"

"I met her at Halifax airport," Grace quoted. "Chief Petty Officer 2nd class, 18 year in the Navy. Her family has a bison ranch. Going home to Toronto to open a yarn shop called Woolhalla. Hashtag 'interestingpeople,' hashtag 'knittingnavylady'"

Greg was glad he'd swallowed his pride and asked Spike to sit down with him for a lesson on social media. He hadn't enjoyed being out of his depth in the Jamie D case. What had made it extra worthwhile was discovering that when Jules had been talking down Jamie she'd been broadcasted live and seen by thousands of viewers. Some of whom had started a fanclub. And a tag: #awesomecoplady.

"Nice. Worked in a plug for the shop there," he grinned.

"He asked if he could put the photo on his site, and I said it was okay as long as he linked to the Woolhalla site. Which I need to update with some info about military and law enforcement discounts."

"The opening announcement is on the site, right?"

"Uh huh," she nodded.

He turned into the street where the shop was, cruising slowly, looking for a parking space. He spotted Jules' car on the corner.

"So how long has that photo been up?"

"Couple hours."

"And how many people just clicked on that link?"

"We… might get a busier day than we thought we would…" she said distractedly, neck craning to look into the shop as he slowly drove past.

He finally found a parking space in the next street over. When she'd finished putting on her new boots, he reached out and tugged her over for a kiss. After a few moments she pushed away, breathing a little hard.

"I am _so_ on board with the whole…" she gestured between them, "let me show you how much I've missed you thing, but we're about to walk into a place full of your colleagues, and I don't really fancy looking all debauched, and--" she interrupted herself. "--fuck, am I really saying this? Am I normally this sensible? What's _happening_ to me?"

He laughed, he couldn't help it, and pulled her back across the centre console for a short, hard kiss, a promise. This wasn't the moment, but he had no compunctions about leaving a little earlier for the airport so they could have some time to sit in a parked car and make out like teenagers.

They were both a little flushed when he helped her into her long woollen peacoat, but the short walk to the shop cooled their cheeks.  

 

There was a cheerful little bell on the door that jangled when they entered, but the place was full enough that they didn't attract immediate attention. Grace stepped to the side a little and just looked around for the space of a minute. He put an arm about her and watched her look, because while he hadn't seen it since before the stock and decoration went in, she hadn't seen it since they'd just gotten the lights working.

The shop looked incredible, all red brick, rough wood and warm light. The huge display rack had been filled with wicker baskets that had white coarse-cloth liners, setting off the natural colours of the yarns and fibres. There was a giant table - her table, the table that was going to be their table - in front of the window with a selection of the small items the family made. The men had broken open the bricked up little fireplace, and there was a fire burning in that fenced-off little corner, an amazing round bison hair rug on the wooden floor and a comfortable chairs in a little circle around it.

"Wow," she breathed, eyes lingering on a large canvas-printed photo of bison in the snow. Then she spotted Armand.

"Frérot!"

Greg had never seen her hug anybody except from himself - she just wasn't that demonstrative - and it was amusing to see her greet her brother, hugging him and talking an incomprehensible mile a minute.

 

There were quite a few acquaintances, but in the course of the afternoon also plenty of walk-ins. Some of them just to have a look around, others stayed for a snack and a chat and bought something. All in all it seemed like a pretty successful opening to him, and Shelley and Grace were both smiling.

Spike had dropped by and found a like-minded spirit in Martin, because they'd been geeking the touch-screen system the latter had set up so people could view short video clips about the ranch and how the various Gaudin items were made. Greg was idly watching something about rug making when Spike suddenly choked on a laugh.

He was waving his phone at Martin and coughing, leaning against the wall for support. Martin stilled his flailing hand to look, and began to chuckle.

Greg took the phone from Spike's hand and looked.

It was a photo on twitter. Of Jules and Grace talking, clearly made that afternoon. Well okay, it wasn't like there hadn't been plenty of cameras and phones out all afternoon, so he was going to try not to find it cause for concern.

_#woolhalla opening. Clearly it's where #interestingpeople meet. Look! #awesomecoplady hangs out with #knittingnavylady - how cool is that?!_

_I ship it_

_My new OTP. #awesomecoplady-knittingnavylady4ever_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why the idea of a twitter or tumblr fanclub amuses me so much :-)


	27. Chapter 27

Grace went on to Esquimalt base, and a week later her brother and nephews returned home, and time moved on. Even though having her for half a day had been entirely too short, it had helped break up the two months for Greg. Getting back into the amateur geology hobby that he'd dropped somewhere along the way helped too. Instead of spending a day off not knowing what to do with himself, he went for a walk and looked for interesting rocks. The nicest ones he put into the tumbler to polish, and he sent one with a perfect, tiny fossil to Dean.  

He'd been in regular email contact with his son, but sometimes it was still awkward and he didn't always know what to write about. Plenty of times he didn't have much more than work going on in his own life, and he wasn't always confident he had the right to ask Dean deeper questions about this life.

Dean had brought up the rock tumbler because it was something he remembered from before - looking for nice rocks together. He still seemed to have the interest, even mailed Greg a few finds to saw through on the ancient slab saw, wanting to know what was inside. Greg was unspeakably happy to have a hobby in common with his son, an interest they could share and talk about without the crippling fear of failure he sometimes still got when they talked about more personal subjects.  

Dean seemed to feel the same, and even suggested to come visit for a weekend before Greg could bring it up. Greg wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed it would be a week before Grace came home, so his son and his girlfriend wouldn't meet this time either.  

 

A week later he was handling the last paperwork of a shift when she sent him a photo somebody had taken of her, shot downward from the top of the not-officially-a-climbing wall at Esquimalt. She was in the middle of a weight transfer, a look of joyful concentration on her face. He grimaced at the depth of the drop behind her and was glad he knew how conscientious she was about her personal safety. She was in climbing harness and--

 _Is that my SRU hoodie? I wondered where that had gone_ he messaged back. It had been in the back of his car the day of the shop opening - he'd worn it after his run that morning.

_Maaaaybe._

_Don't tell me you don't have enough sweaters without stealing mine_

She had a hoodie from every ship she'd ever been deployed on, and at least six knitted sweaters.

_Yours is nicer. Think of it as a sign of affection_

_Stealing my clothes is a sign of affection?_

_Yep._

He could almost hear her say it, popping the P and giving him the big brown eyes of unrepentant fake innocence.

_By the power vested in me by the Secret Cabal of Women, as your girlfriend I have the right to borrow your sweaters_

_You made that up_

_Did not. Check with Jules, or Winnie_

Yeah, there was no way he was going to breach this subject with Jules, because it was too close to subjects he definitely wasn't supposed to know

_It wasn't even washed!_

_Exactly. It's like you're giving me a big warm hug._

He snorted a surprised laugh, because really? What?

The next message was a photo again, of her in the hoodie in her quarters. It was a bit big on her, and she looked very comfortable, making imploring eyes at the camera. He felt an inexplicable rush of pleasure at the idea that she was wearing something of his, some kind of caveman instinct satisfied.

 

"Having fun with your reports?"

"Hi Eddie. Does Sophie ever borrow your sweaters?"

Ed blinked at that out of the blue question and stepped further into the briefing room.

"Huh? Oh yeah, started when she was pregnant with Clark. It was the only thing that fit her comfortably."

"And she never stopped?"

"Once she said 'It feels like you're keeping me warm' there was pretty much no way to win that war. I just got some extra ones so they stay in rotation. What are you gonna do?" Ed shrugged with a grin.

"Guess it's not just Grace with the oddly specific kleptomania then," Greg chuckled.

"You guys doing okay?"

"Some days more than others," he admitted after a moment. "I get used to missing her, and then there's a bad job, and…"

"You just miss somebody to come home to?" Ed supplied.

"Yeah. But hey, it is what it is, for the next year and a half. She's not exactly thrilled to be away either."

"She's gonna make her twenty years come hell or high water, huh?"

"Well, I'm not going to suggest she shouldn't," Greg said, responding to Ed's tone more than his words. "Giving her the idea I consider my work more important than hers is probably going to make her rethink my position in her life."

Ed, recent to the knowledge that Sophie had been dreaming about starting a catering business for 20 years and that his career had always automatically come first, nodded slowly.

Not that Greg didn't have the occasional moment of wishing she'd just quit. He wouldn't define himself as old fashioned, but his marriage had been traditional in terms of gender roles, and cops in general tended toward that kind of relationship.

The one time he'd thoughtlessly said 'You don't _have_ to go' she'd replied, in a sweet voice that had alerted the think-carefully-now alarm in his brain, that he could always quit the SRU and move to Halifax to be with her.

"Hey, you wanna come over and watch Izzy watch the aurora lights projector?"

"Sounds like a good time to me."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's short, because the rest I had written ahead kind of got turned upside down when I watched Call To Arms. 
> 
> If you're interested in my response to watching eps, as well as the cool Flashpoint gifs I've been making, I will once again refer you to [primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com](primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com) :-)


	28. Chapter 28

The next ten days were one long succession of heavy calls, a 4 AM drug bust, and a murder suicide he was unable to prevent. Greg started to wake up with nightmares again, always mid dream in a phone conversation interrupted by gunfire. He swallowed his pride and attended a few AA meetings, which he hadn't needed in years. It was better than sitting alone in his house, trying to fight the thought that a quart of scotch would drown out the sound of the gunfire.

He didn't like for Grace to know how close to the edge he'd come a few times now, but he suspected she knew. If she didn't, the three-quarters of a heart attack he had once during a phone conversation would probably have explained it to her. They were talking when there was a scuffle sound, she went silent mid word, and there was a sound like a gunshot.

The next few seconds were eternities of abject panic, because this wasn't a work call, a call where he might be somewhat braced for hearing gunfire.  This was an Grace call, a casual conversation about where he was planning to take Dean to look for fossils. A conversation that was supposed to be safe with a person who was supposed to be safely on a Navy base.

He heard her cursing distantly and managed to force air into his lungs. He realised he was on his feet, halfway to his firearm safe - as if that would do anything when she was in Esquimalt.

There was another scuffling sound, and he could hear her breathing again.

"Grace! Was that gunfire? Are you okay?"

"No no, I'm okay!" she sounded breathless and urgent.

"Are you sure, dear?" he prompted.

Hoping they would never need it, he'd asked her to pick a code word for 'Everything is fine' and one for 'I need help'. She'd gone with 'darling' for the first and 'sweety' for the second, on the basis that she would never ordinarily call him that but that it would fit naturally into a conversation.

"I'm fine darling," she said immediately, and it took him long seconds to process that her urgent tone wasn't because of some crisis on her side, that she was responding to his tone. She wasn't trying to assuage somebody aiming a gun at her. She was worried _for him_.

"There's a draft here, and the door slammed. Fumbled my bluetooth earpiece. Sorry to worry you."

Okay. Okay. He tried to force his breathing to slow and didn't quite succeed.

Just the fact that he had asked her to use the safe code probably told her volumes about his state of mind. She kept up a steady, soothing description he only half heard, something about the colours in the waves when she'd been at the beach the day before, until she was in her own quarters. He listened to her as she put her things down and sat down on the bed.

"Lot of bad calls lately?"

She generally operated under the assumption that if he wanted to talk to her about work, he would - she sometimes asked, but she never insisted or pried. He knew it was her way of giving him space and that it didn't mean she didn't want to know. She would listen if he wanted to tell her, but he thought maybe sometimes he needed to be pushed.

"Yeah," she sighed, slowly sinking back down onto the couch. "Hostages on the phone, a couple of times. You're trying to keep them calm, get information, give them the best chance to survive…" He told her about a man holding a gun on his ex wife, about a delusional man in an office, about hearing the phone line go silent, about the sound of the gunshot.

They all had their specific triggers and nightmares, and hearing gunfire over the phone connection with the person he'd just been trying to help survive… those breathless seconds waiting to find out if the hostage was still alive… yeah, that had risen to the top of his list of things he dreaded.

"I honestly don't know how you still manage to pick up the phone," she said softly, when he'd finished. "I would be having an anxiety attack every time."

"I don't know either," he sighed, because - because yeah, he was getting to the point of dreading calls.

She didn't reply, and he felt himself getting sucked into that black hole of silence, felt himself filling it with words. Heard himself tell her about the self-doubt, the constant fear of his best not being good enough, of saying the wrong things, or not saying the right things, and make everything worse.

He talked to her about work sometimes when she was in Toronto, but it was somehow much easier to keep talking when they were on the phone. Perhaps because he knew he had all of her considerable focus, but he didn't have to see the impact of his words reflected in her expression. Perhaps also at least partially that he couldn't distract her - and himself - by kissing her.

"When is the last time you went on holiday?" she asked when he'd run himself down.

"I took time off to be with you, in December."

"That was time off at home. When is the last time you spent more than one night away from home, for recreational purposes?"

"Do nights spent at your place count?" he asked, smiling a little.

"No. I mean, time spent getting your head out of work headspace."

"Spending time with you does that."

"Mmm," she acknowledged without agreeing.  Probably heard the answer he'd avoided - longer than he could remember. "I am in work headspace months at a time, but then I get to go home and completely leave it behind," she explained, in a tone that made him suspect this was a concept she had shared with subordinates. "I always thought you had a better balance, but maybe not."

"It's harder to leave work behind when you're away," he said cautiously, because neither of them liked the idea of the relationship being a mental health crutch.

"Do you think you can take a long weekend off for every leave period I get?" she said slowly. "Because I'm thinking we should get out of town a bit more often."

"I already took a week off for June, but I should be able to manage a three day or four weekend once every three months," he mused. He had plenty of vacation time built up, that wasn't the problem. He would need to start training the station schedulers out of thinking of him whenever they needed a gap filled. He'd been Sergeant No Life Always Available for a long time now.  

"Hey yes, that's in a couple of weeks already," she perked up. She was supposed to go on leave in eight days, and they would fly up North in the third week of her month of leave. "Armand says he'll have Little East cleared up by then, so we should even have some privacy!"

That sounded a lot better than the single room in her parents' house she'd told him to be prepared for.

"They're not traditional about us sharing?"

"They probably would be if I wasn't forty and infertile," she said, and he startled a little, because that wasn't a word she'd ever used for herself. "I think my mother is just happy I'm not alone."

Greg idly palmed the pebble he'd found on a lakeside walk a week before. He wasn't even sure what had made him pick it up, but when he'd emptied the bag of the day's findings onto the garage workbench it had split and revealed a perfectly shaped little heart on the grey break surface. He had in his mind that it would make her a nice gift, but exactly what it should be - a ring? a necklace? - wouldn't come to him, so he'd just been carrying it around.

"Well, some time not swarmed by family will probably be nice," he said. "It sounded like the winter house is crowded."

"Pretty much. Plus, we don't have to sit around in the evenings and pretend my grandfather isn't drinking too much, that's always a bonus," she said just a little too brightly.

 "Are you worried they won't like me or that I won't like them?"

"Either, both?" She laughed a little nervously. "There are some pretty deeply entrenched ideas about the government and law enforcement in the older generations. Should have heard the drama when I decided to join the Navy."

"But how important is it to you that they like me?" he asked, trying to figure out where the issue was. He'd thought things would be easier now he'd gotten on okay with her brother and nephews, but maybe the stakes were higher than he'd thought. "Is it a dealbreaker?"

It was silent for the space of a second, and his stomach dropped. He hadn't seriously thought that might be true, just wanted to give her something to put family approval into perspective.

"I'm.. I'm not sure if I understood what you just asked," she said finally, sounding wary and hesitant.

"If they don't like me, would you not want to be with me anymore?"

"What? No!" she startled, and he could breathe again. She was silent for a time, but this time he could wait, could give her space to line up the right words in the right language.

"I just… I want you to feel welcome, okay? I want to be able to share my home with you. I want you to be able to see why my mental compass is oriented there."

"I really want to kiss you right now," he blurted, and she laughed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally starting to really diverge from canon in the next few chapters, so things have been a little slower in coming. I've now watched all of S4.


	29. Chapter 29

Greg crawled out of his hole at least partially, with a combination of AA meetings and Ed inviting him over some evenings, as well as looking forward to seeing Dean. It was about half knowing he had to be together for his son, and half just plain looking forward to spending time with him.

 He knew it'd probably only take one bad job to shove him back down, but at least he hopefully would be okay with Dean.

 

"Boss, I've got the 911 call from inside the office. It's from a Jean Robitaille's cellphone, but it's mostly silent. You can't really make out the conversation."

 "Play it anyway."

Greg put a hand over his free ear to block out the traffic sounds as he listened. There were distant voices, not clear enough to make out apart from the agitated tone, interspersed with taps and shuffle sounds.

"I'm working on cleaning it up so we can hear what they're saying," Spike said, probably already working his laptop from the passenger seat of one of the other cars. "It sounds like somebody is touching the phone speaker."

Greg concentrated on the foreground sound. There seemed to be a pattern to it.

"Is that morse code?" he wondered aloud. "I think that's an SOS."

"Yeah, there's more, but it's faint," Spike agreed. "He's probably tapping on the phone speaker."

"So what does it say?"

"Sorry boss, morse is a little oldschool for me. I'd have to look it up."

"Take too long," Greg decided. "Winnie, can you try Grace Gaudin's cellphone? Number's in my file. Play the tape to her."

She was still in Esquimalt, and if he remembered right she would be teaching on one of the ships currently in port, so if she wasn't too deep inside the ship she should be in range. They never called each other during work hours, so hopefully it would be unusual enough for her to pick up.

"Dialling. Want me to patch her in?"

"Yeah, faster is better."

"Gaudin," she answered, brisk and clipped.

"Hi Grace, you're on speaker," he greeted her. "We've got a situation and we need a hand with some morse code, can we play it for you?"

"Oh, hi - go ahead," she said, exhaling. She sounded relieved. He heard some of the background chatter disappear with the sound of a door closing, though there was still a lot of white noise. It was never quiet on a ship.  

The tape started.

"SOS - Queens…" she translated on the fly. Then, "Sorry Greg, I need to transcribe this first, give me a minute."

"You a little rusty, Grace?" Spike grinned.

"I'm not, but your sender is," she said, and he heard her uncap the sharpie she was never without. "He's got some missing letters and breaks, it'll make more sense when I write it down. Can you restart it?"

They listened to the 911 call again.

"Okay, filling in as much as I can: SOS, Queens Rd offices 4, 7 - break - 2HT - break - 9H." she read back. "Then it gets unclear, but probably 'guns'. Then SOS three more times, then it ends. That mean anything to you?"

"Yes it does, thanks for your help," he said, getting a Look from Ed, probably for the completely businesslike tone of this conversation.

"You're welcome. Good luck!" she hung up, presumably to get back to her classroom. 

"Really?" Ed said a moment later. "That's how you guys talk?"

"She's in work mode, I'm in work mode," Greg shrugged. They would talk tonight. He belatedly realised that she probably had the station number programmed into her phone under 'Bad news about Greg' and that was why she'd sounded so relieved.

 

Her help didn't change the case, but it did give them a running start on the situation, and it resolved in the most positive way these things could - with minimal injury, and two people safely in custody.

That even the most positive outcome still involved trauma counselling for nine people was something he was trying not to feel strange about. For the team this was a good day. For those nine people it was possibly one of the worst of their lives.

He shook himself out of the thought. Dean was arriving that evening, and he couldn't burden his son with this.

 

Seeing Dean again yanked at something powerful in Greg, like something inside him clicking into place for the first time in ages. And where the email and skype conversations were sometimes still stilted, in person it was much easier to talk.

Greg had never had a great example from his own father about how fathers talked to sons (talking _at_ sons, now that he'd experienced often enough). He also wasn't completely confident about how fatherly he was allowed to be, where the line was. Talking in person gave him much more feedback, gave him body language to go on, and it was one area where he felt no reluctance to use professional skills to smooth the way in his personal life.

(That, and using hand-to-hand skills against Grace in a tickle fight, but that was another matter. The first time he'd done it she'd yelped that it was completely unfair, but then when he'd immediately backed off she'd followed up with "This is not me complaining") 

Dean was full of questions this time, and clearly more comfortable asking them - what did Greg do in his time off? Was he at home a lot? Did he have weird shifts or were they mostly regular work times? How often did he see Grace? What was she like?

Given the interest he sent her a message if she had time for a skype call.

_We're doing an emergency drill tonight, but I have ~30m while I get ready?_

_That's fine. Dean is interested in meeting you._

_Oh cool. Fair warning - will be multitasking & that includes fake gore_

He checked with Dean and grinned when he'd correctly guessed that that was considered a draw rather than a deterrent, and she promised to get online.

He tried not to be nervous about this meeting while he set up his laptop. Grace was good with teenagers, and Dean seemed willing to like her. The two most important people in his life would get on just fine, and he needed to hang back and relax and let them discover that.

The connection opened with an wildly swerving image of a small cabin.

"I thought the ship was in port?"

"Hi," she said out of sight of the camera. "Sorry, just trying to find an angle that gives me enough light to work. Ah, this'll do it."

She set the laptop down and came into view, dressed in BDU trousers and a navy tank top. Her hair was tucked into a utilitarian bun the way he never saw when she was at home.

Greg pushed his laptop a little further back on the table, so he and Dean were both in view of the camera, sitting side by side.

"Hi, you must be Dean," she said, "we need to get this timing thing right sometime so we can actually meet in person."

"Hello Grace. Greg talks about you a lot," Dean said.

"He does?" she pulled up her eyebrows in amused surprise and glanced at Greg. He was a little surprised himself - he wasn't aware he talked about her so much.

"Well, not like stories," Dean corrected himself, "But you come up a lot."

That was probably true; she was intertwined with all the parts of his life he enjoyed talking about.

"In case you hadn't noticed, you are kind of important to me," he said, utterly deadpan.

"Aww. I'd say something sappy, but I don't wanna make Dean uncomfortable," she flashed him a grin. "Speaking of uncomfortable, Dean, how are you with the sight of blood?"

"Um.. okay, I guess?"

"Oh good, I have to get ready for this drill and there's some gory makeup involved. Let me know if you'd prefer me to turn off the camera."

Greg leaned back and smiled a little. He watched as Grace applied disturbingly realistic wound make-up to her bicep, and Dean leaned closer to the screen, asking fascinated questions.

"Well, I'm on here as a supernumerary," she explained at some point. "Which means I don't have a role in the running of the ship, and also makes me very easy to forget when they do an emergency roll call. Plus I'm by far the lightest Chief on at the moment, so apparently," she rolled her eyes, "that makes me the perfect victim for emergency drills."

She used a small portable fan to dry the glue she'd applied to the silicone patch on her arm, and then pressed in a piece of smooth white--

"Is that bone?"

"Yeah, it's going to look like an open break," she nodded, turning her arm toward the camera so Dean could see.

"I can't decide if that's more cool or more gross," he said, shaking his head. "My friend Paul wants to become a paramedic. Not sure if I could do it."

"Yeah, I'm with you on that one. I can handle it when needed, but I wouldn't want to be handling it constantly," she nodded. "And you? Do you have plans for when you finish school or are still working it out?"

"Still thinking about it," Dean said slowly. "It feels so weird to have to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life. How did you end up where you are?"

"Not sure if I'm a good example of considered career choices," she said, shaking a big bottle of fake blood. "I mostly wanted to get away from where I was, and once I'd gone through basic training they gave me aptitude tests and Combat Engineering claimed me. Wasn't like I set out to have a career in dropping bombs on people."

Greg hid his wince at that brutal honesty about what her job was. She could have said 'Missile guidance systems engineering' and that would have been true, but she'd said the words he knew she didn't like saying, and he rather thought that was a favour to Dean. Even if his son looked taken aback by it.

"So why'd you keep going?"

"Well, I'm good at it, and I'm highly specialised, so there aren't a lot of skills that transfer to a civilian job. And I really love being at sea," she smiled, softening a little. She was dabbing blood gel onto the fake wound, which was weirdly intriguing. "No regrets about spending about 12 full years out there."

"You don't mind being away so much?"

"Well, until last year I didn't really have a reason to want to be ashore a lot," she said, with the glint of a grin when Dean glanced at Greg. "But I really just enjoy being on ships. You know I grew up really isolated, right?"

"Uh, sort of," Dean said.

"Being on a ship is a little like that. Makes your world smaller, makes you part of a system of people that has one common goal - it's nice. I kind of miss that now I come on as supernumerary, because now I'm an outsider."

"I don't know really what I want to do yet," Dean said, and Greg didn't sit up or visibly paid attention, allowed himself to disappear into the background. This was one of the topics he hadn't felt sure he could breach. "I'm thinking about a gap year. Explore a little before I make decisions."

"I like gap years," Grace said, putting the finishing touches to the by now very gory wound on her arm. "The new recruits I meet here who have had the opportunity for something like that seem clearer on what they want out of working here. Even if you do already know what you want, it could help you feel more certain about it."

"Yeah, that's what my mom said. Like with trying on shoes. Even if you think the first pair are perfect, try two more pair so you have something to compare them to."

"Something like that, yeah," Grace smiled. "What sort of thing would you want to do in that year?"

"I don't really know yet. Work, travel some."

"But surely you have dreams, places you want to go?" she looked up and smiled, then glanced back down. She was soaking the inside of the sleeve of a BDU shirt with fake blood. When it seemed gory enough to her, she shrugged into the shirt, shoved her glasses back up her nose, and then noticed the bloody smears on the hand that had passed through the bloody sleeve.

"Great." she said under her breath, wrinkling her nose. 

Dean grinned.  "I don't know… Go on a crazy road trip, stop at places to work for a few weeks.. climb a mountain.. try kite surfing… volunteer at a soup kitchen.. you know, just stuff I wouldn't normally do."

"That sounds pretty cool," Grace said. "There's this big sailing ship in Halif--"

She was interrupted by her radio set.

_This is Ops for Chief Gaudin_

"Yeah, go ahead Ops," she answered, with an 'excuse me' gesture at Greg and Dean.

_Chief, are you ready? We are good to go on this end_

"I need a minute for the head wound, then you can start pumping smoke."

_Copy that. Ops out._

"Can we watch?" Dean asked when she'd put the radio down. "You could leave the call open?"

"I could, but I'm not staying in this cabin, so there won't be much to see," she said, soaking a small flat round sponge with fake blood. "I'm going to be at the bottom of a ladder."

She put the soaked sponge on her head, then pulled a standard issue navy watch cap over it.

"We'll let you get to your acting job, then," Greg said, smiling at the way she gingerly touched the sponge through the knit fabric and grimaced when it squelched. "Are you still sailing out tomorrow?"

"Yeah, training coastal run on the _HMCS Yellowknife_. They should fly me back ashore sometime on Thursday, and I'll let you know my--" Alarms began blaring in the background, and there was a red light flashing above her door. "--ETA." she finished. "Nice to meet you, Dean. Bye love!"

She reached out to close the lid of the laptop, and the connection dropped.

 

He had an enjoyable weekend with Dean, and then on Monday the breathtaking, baffling, utterly terrifying discovery that _his son wanted to come live with him_. If he'd been worried to fuck up before, this was a whole new level.

Dean still had his finals to finish, so they agreed he would move to Toronto  sometime at the end of June, after he was finished with school, and after Greg was back from visiting Grace's family. Hopefully the timing could work out so Dean and Grace would be able to meet in person, but after having seen them talk via skype he was a whole lot less concerned about that meeting.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got distracted for a bit, but this is still going! Promise I'm not abandoning it without an at least somewhat satisfying conclusion :-)


	30. Chapter 30

Grace was out of phone range for the next few days, and with the few short emails they exchanged he decided not to tell her about Dean's plans until she got back. He thought - hoped - that she'd be happy for him, but he wanted to see her when he told her, so he'd have body language to go on.

Then he was held over a 20-metre drop by a man who was convinced that Greg alone had ruined his life, and spent the next few days alternately cursing and blessing the Royal Canadian Navy for keeping her away. He couldn't decide if it would be worse if she'd been there to see him in the aftermath, all raw and tore open, or better to have her there to keep him grounded with her steady presence. He called her cellphone a few times, wanting to leave a message, but hung up every time.

 

The night before she was scheduled to fly back ashore he got a message.

_Heads-up: Training mishap. Mild concussion, spent 1 night in infirmary, got cleared this morning. I'm fine, but it doesn't look nice. Sending you this so you can have your freakout in private._

It was followed a moment later by a photo of her face, the left side of her face badly bruised. Her eye was swollen shut.

He put the phone down next to him and breathed through an unexpectedly strong wash of murderous fear, through the uncontrollable impulse to find whoever had done that to her and make them pay. When he'd shoved it down and his vision had stopped tunnelling he allowed himself to reply.

_What happened?_

_I was the bad guy in a WCon room Hostile Takeover drill. Went well except the guard's HTH skills lack a proportional force setting. He swung me into a wall._

Greg forced himself to look at the photo again, to really examine her face. She was coming home soon, so he better desensitise himself to the way it looked now, train himself to contain that sick, furious feeling in his gut.

He considered the timing of her message. She'd deliberately sent it when she was sure he would be at home, so there was no possible way it could have thrown him off in the middle of a case. And the wording made clear she'd anticipated a strong reaction. It was a little unnerving that she'd known to expect that, really.

_From the angle it looks lucky he didn't break your nose_

_I know. Poor guy is MORTIFIED. Told him chocolate would settle the score just so he'd stop apologising. This backfired, I now have half the ship's supply of chocolate bars._

She sent a photo of a Jenga-style tower of chocolate bars, and he choked out an involuntary laugh.  

 

A helicopter flew her back ashore on Thursday afternoon, and she had been given an overnight flight, with a couple of hours stopover in Calgary. She was supposed to arrive at 0620 on the Friday, and he'd arranged to pick her up and drive her home before his shift started. But overnight an email arrived to let him know things in Calgary were 'fucked up' and to check for delays before he went to the airport.

He could stretch it a little, but just before he was supposed to leave for the airport the webpage showed the new arrival time for her flight at 0930. He sighed and headed into work instead, hoping for a minor crisis so he wouldn't spent all shift feeling guilty for not picking her up.

 _Sorry love, have arranged a taxi to pick you up instead. He should have a sign with your name. I will come by after my shift & bring food._ He messaged her, so she'd see it when she turned her phone back on. He preferred to pick her up in person, but part of the joy for her was to let somebody else take over and navigate her home, so a taxi driver waiting to pick her up and get her home was the next best thing.

 _'k, thanks. Gonna crash, didn't sleep overnight_ he got back after she'd landed at 1017 hrs.

His shift contained no crises, but a meeting that seemed to last approximately a century.

 

"Grace?" he called softly that afternoon, closing her front door behind himself. He hadn't rung the doorbell because she might be asleep, but he didn't want to ghost around her house when she might be on edge. Nobody answered though.

The place was silent, a little chilly - the balcony door was wide open, and it wasn't a warm day outside.

She was curled up on her sofa, wrapped up tightly in a colourful knit blanket. On the table close to her was a cup of tea that had fallen over, the tea spilled all over the table and the rug underneath, and apparently abandoned. Her glasses were on the floor next to the spill, together with a battered paperback that looked like it had been thrown down in anger.  

He looked her over from a few metres away, breathing away the gut response to how her face looked. Willed away the tunnel vision that had no place here, no function. The bruising had bloomed into a deep mottled purple, with yellow and green already colouring the edges. Her eye was still swollen, and she had her hands tucked up close to her face, as if subconsciously protecting herself.

She stirred, and he went closer, crouching next to the sofa, not entirely surprised when she spoke.  

"You been here long?" she sounded groggy and hoarse.

"Just got here," he said under his breath, fingers twitching with the urge to touch her but uncertain how to do it without hurting her. If she even wanted to be touched. He finally settled for stroking her hands.

She twitched a little at the touch, and her eyes drifted open. They were puffy and red, and he thought she'd been crying.

She seemed to realise that he'd noticed at about the same moment, because she groaned, hiding her face in her hands, then flinched at the touch against her sore skin.  

"Want to talk about it?"

"No," she whispered, sounding mortified and annoyed all at once.

He shook his head, smiling to himself, because she was sometimes so open and sometimes so closed and he thought he might never figure her out.

"Okay. Is there room for me under there?"

She dropped one hand from her face to wordlessly hold open the blanket. He started to move and then stilled again.

"Are you hurt anywhere apart from your face?"

She gave a tiny shake with her head.

Good, so he could hold her without worry. He took off his sweater, having already taken off his shoes at the door, and slipped under the blanket, close up against her. They moved around for a few moments, getting comfortable, until he was on his back and she was curled into his side, her unhurt cheek on his shoulder.

"You don't have to tell me what's wrong if you don't want to," he said softly, "but you don't need to hide from me if you cry, okay? You know what I do for a living, I can handle a few tears."

"kay" she breathed after a moment, letting her hand drop away from her face and curling it against the side of his neck instead. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and let his hand cup around her head, cradling her close.

Greg let his breathing attune with hers and then gradually slowed down, pleased when she followed, the hitches slowly fading from her inhales. She was crying silently - he couldn't quite see her face at this angle, but he could feel tears making a damp spot in his t-shirt.

Witnessing other people's emotions was something he'd learned over the course of his career as a negotiator, and trying to make somebody stop crying was right up there on the list of Things You Don't Do. Offering comfort was one thing, but the intention had to be to make them feel better, not to make them stop crying because it made you uncomfortable to witness it.

It was one of the lessons he'd drummed into his team - people had a right to their emotions, even if they were inconvenient or uncomfortable for you.

  
After perhaps half an hour she'd stilled, breathing quietly, no longer sniffling. He reached down with his free hand and grabbed the paperback from the ground. _Good Omens_. From the looks of it, it had been passed around as an unofficial crew library book.

"Want me to read to you for a while?" he offered softly.

"Best. Boyfriend. Ever." She tapped her index finger against the side of the neck to punctuate her words, and he laughed, startled, a little too loud in the quiet room.

She pushed herself up a little, sucked in a sharp breath when she touched her sore jaw against his shoulder, and then brushed her lips against his.

"I've spent the last three days being 'okay' for other people," she said, rolling her eyes. "But it sucks, and it _hurts_ , and people stare, and.. ugh."

"Then your tea went over?" he asked softly.

"Yeah. And that was like the end of the world and totally worth bawling over."

She let her head sink back down, and he stroked her hair, feeling a surge of affection. This had to have been the first moment she wasn't putting how everybody else felt about her injury before how she felt about it, didn't have to keep a good face on it to reassure other people that she was fine.

She trusted him to be okay seeing her like this, to not need the charade, and to his surprise he didn't feel it like a weight at all. He liked taking care of her when she came back, liked feeling needed in this simple way, where all he had to do was be there and hold her. Where the stakes were low, and if he was at a loss, he could ask her what she needed and she would tell him.

"So, reading or dinner?" he asked after a few minutes.

"Does dinner require us to move?" She yawned, then groaned because it hurt her jaw.

He took that for a rhetorical question.

"When did you last eat?"

She was silent for a long moment, frowning.

"Are you trying to remember?" he asked incredulously. It was nearing dinnertime, and while she didn't have anything fresh in the house, she always made sure there were powerbars and other emergency rations for if she got home and couldn't shop until the next day. Even if she hadn't eaten anything since she got home - it could happen, she hadn't even changed out of her BDU trousers and base layer top --

"Surely you had something at the airport?"

"Um.. Calgary Airport is dead in the middle of the night," she said slowly. "And I couldn't really chew the sandwich they had on the flight this morning."

Ah, of course. The sore jaw probably hadn't helped with the nutrition issue.

"You think you can manage mushroom risotto?"

"Ohh." Her eyes lit up, and he grinned, because as down as she'd obviously been, her mood was already lifting.

"I'm afraid it does require us to move," he said. "Or at least, I need to get up. You can stay here and snooze."

"Mm. I should probably, you know, shower and get out of the cammies."

She pressed a kiss to the base of his throat, causing a shiver along his spine, then shifted away so he could get up.

 

"Did you and Dean have a good time?"

He smiled at her, at the way she looked comfortable and kind of adorable in sweats and the too-large sweater he'd taken off. She was slowly eating the risotto, but she seemed to be enjoying it.

"Yeah, it was great to spend some time," he said. Hesitated, then just threw it out. "He wants to come live here."

"Really?" her eyes grew wide, and she gestured with her spoon, "that's awesome!"

"Yeah," he breathed, "Yeah it is. He's still got finals to get through, and then he's moving up here in the summer."

She nodded.

"Wasn't sure how you'd feel about it," he confessed. "It does impact you too."

"And if he'd been three years old, I would probably have felt a bit conflicted about it," she said honestly. "But he's 17, it's not like we'd never have a moment to ourselves. And I really liked him."

 


	31. Chapter 31

It would have been nice to think that having Grace home and within reach made everything better, but it didn't. Spending evenings - sometimes nights, too - at her place made it a little easier to keep the despair at bay. Her presence helped fill the silence, gave him something to latch on to even when it was just her spinning while they watched nature documentaries. It filled headspace that otherwise would have been filled with endlessly replaying situations, relentlessly working through everything he should have done different.

It didn't change the bone deep panic every time Team One got a hot call. It also didn't stop him from missing things, important things, about his team.

 

It didn't stop him from almost - almost! - feeling relieved when Dr Toth laid the suspension papers in front of him. Instead he smothered a wry, bitter laugh, because his bags were mostly packed and he was a day and a half away from a holiday. It would be his first in years, and the idea that he might not come back from it struck him as distantly, hysterically funny.

He was about to say something he already knew he would regret when the call came of just what kind of trouble his team was in, and reality snapped back into place. The lightheaded, distant feeling was gone the moment he was on his feet, and the world was turning again just as it ought to.

 

He still brought those papers home with him that night, unwilling to sign them but unable to throw them away. Grace found them on the kitchen counter when she breezed in from kennel-cleaning day at the shelter.

She was in rolled-up shorts and a tank top, her hair back in a messy ponytail, and she had that tired-energetic air she got from being physically tired but relaxed in her head. Her face was healed now, only a slight shading along her jaw reminding of how it had looked not long ago. He was sitting on the couch where he could look into the kitchen, and he saw her still as she saw the papers, took in what they meant.

He'd talked himself out of keeping it from her, because even in this depression he knew that if he wanted her in his life he needed to be open about something so important. But he had no idea how she'd react. Her sense of duty and discipline, instilled in her youth and in a career in the military, could come out in unexpected ways. He had no idea how she would react, and he had no idea how he _wanted_ her to react.

She padded toward him on bare feet, and he avoided her eyes, not knowing what he'd see there, not quite wanting to find out.

"Hey."

She dropped down on the couch next to him, then took his hand and turned it palm upward, kissing the inside of his wrist.

He didn't say anything, just pulled her into his lap. She straddled his legs, moving close until their stomachs and chests were pressed together, her head on his shoulder, nose tucked against his neck. He let his breathing fall into synch with hers, slow and deep, and held her tightly.

"Say something," he said, after what felt like a long time.

"Have you decided?"

"I don't know."

"Okay."

He kind of hated her for not pushing, not dragging this out of him, not telling him off for abandoning his team. He thought he maybe wanted to hear that. Hear her Chief voice telling him to stop brooding and get the fuck on with things. Some well-guarded part of him was spoilt for a fight, craved resistance to shove against.

"I don't want to quit, but I don't think I can do it anymore," he said finally. "The team deserves somebody in charge who doesn't freeze up."

"Do you need to decide before we leave?"

He was silent for long minutes, because he thought maybe he had already decided he couldn't do it anymore.

"Because I think getting some headspace might really help," she said finally.

"It's not fair to let my team wait for the decision."

She hummed noncommittally and said nothing, and they were both sunken in thought for what seemed like a long time.

At some point she'd started to idly let her fingertips trace the back of his neck, and he tilted his head forward a little, cheek resting against her hair. She was all warm skin and the scent of sunscreen and hard work, and he let himself get lost a little in her. Let himself sink into the rhythm of her breathing, the solid pressure of her body against his.

He let his hands trace the line of the muscles in her side, slid them up under the fabric of her top. Slowly raked his blunt nails down her back and chuckled when she hissed and arched her spine, away from his hands and closer against his body.

He knew he was distracting himself from the issue here, but she didn't seem all that interested in keeping him on topic.

She let out a shivery sigh and a mumbled "You're mean."

"Uh huh," he agreed. "Is it a problem?"

"Did that sound like me complaining?" There was the undercurrent of laughter in her voice.

"I'm not sure, let me check…"

He did it again, and she let out the sort of shivery, breathy 'oh' that he would be hearing in his dreams when she'd gone back to work.

"No, I guess that didn't sound like complaining," he conceded, leaning forward and pushing to his feet. She yelped and clung on, locking her legs around his waist. "More like 'We should go upstairs'."

She bit his trapezium muscle as he sat down on the edge of his bed, and he sucked in a breath. Then he grinned and dug his hand into her hair and pulled her in, held her so he could kiss her exactly how he liked to, slow and thorough.

After a moment she made a soft, low sound in her throat and relaxed into him, and he shivered at the rush to his stomach.

He loved this, the way she could put herself into his hands, the utter trust of it. How he never, ever second guessed himself here. 

 

He got through the next day.

Somehow.

He got so close to walking away, to admitting he couldn't do this and leave the situation in the more than capable hands of his team, but somehow he managed to make himself push the radio button and keep talking to the fire captain, and if he was close to crying when he saw the man get helped down the ladder, well. 

 

Ed turned off his radio in the car on the way back to base, and Greg already knew what was coming.

"So boss, you burn those papers?"

"No, I did not," he said softly. It was only the knowledge that he wouldn't have to do anything like today's situation for the next eight days that kept him from saying that yes, he was signing them. He couldn't actually sign them and hand them in today; Grace had convinced him to leave the papers at home. He could announce it, but it still wouldn't be official until he did the paperwork next week.

"Sorry to leave you guys hanging, but I need some space before I make a decision," he said after a moment, glancing at Ed.

"We got Grace to thank for this?"

That could be taken either way, positive or negative.

"In the sense that without her there I probably would have signed them last night, yeah," he said, wanting to make it clear that if he quit, it wouldn't because of her. Ed nodded. "She's the one insisting I need to take the week to think about it."

"Fair enough. You looking forward to the trip?"

Greg asked himself that question and realised he didn't know. He honestly wasn't sure if he was capable of looking forward to anything right now. It was just going to happen, and he would get through it.

"I just hope the twenty-hour daylight doesn't mess with my sleep too much," he shrugged, avoiding the question. It was two days past midsummer, and the sun only set for 4 hours a night up there at the moment.

Grace had initially been disappointed when they couldn't be there for the Midsummer feast - equinoxes were invariably celebrated - but had admitted the day before that it was a bit of a blessing. He'd also caught part of a phone conversation in which she'd assured the person on the other end of the line that she'd see if she could bring him around to introduce him, but that the main purpose was a relaxing holiday, and that big, whole family gatherings were out of the question.

"We're gonna be antisocial some nights, and if there's people pounding on the door at Little East, I'm not planning to open" she'd said.

He was deeply, embarrassingly grateful for how he didn't need to ask for these things.

They would be taking a 4 PM flight via Calgary, and arrive in Yellowknife close to midnight. He definitely understood why the family had invested in a cabin in the city. They would be spending the night there, and as he understood it, on Saturday there would be two cars with family members coming in, one of which they could drive to the ranch once it had been loaded up with shopping.

Once he'd gotten home that night he realised that the afternoon flight the next day meant that once he'd packed his bag and had dinner, he had an entire 17 empty hours ahead of him before he needed to get over to Grace's place. She was at the shop tonight, and after debating it for a few moments, he decided to take a sleeping pill and at least start his holiday physically rested. That it meant he didn't have to churn the day's situation over and over in his mind was just a beneficial side effect.

 


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So um, I figured out Ally isn't actually called Ally at all. She's called Grace. I hate when characters withhold their names from me. I went back and changed it everywhere (I think)

He spent the morning feeling groggy but surprisingly good, like he'd taken a few steps back from the edge, and didn't realise his mistake until he was sitting on the plane feeling far more awake than he wanted to be. He wasn't outright scared of flying, but he definitely wasn't relaxed either, especially during takeoff and landing.

Grace had apparently stayed out until well past midnight - "Some of the knitting group went to the bar, and well.." - and settled down in the chair next to him with the air of somebody who did this a lot.

"You okay?"

"Just realising I should have saved the sleeping pill until now."

"Want some distraction?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, because when she said distraction she usually meant things not suitable for doing in public, and she flashed him a grin.

"I've got spoken books on my ipod. Gives you something to focus on."

"I'll take it."

He spent the majority of the flights sharing earphones with Grace, listening to a recording of Good Omens while she dozed with her head against his shoulder. If you had to be in a flying death trap, this was definitely the way to do it.

 

The moment they walked out of Yellowknife's tiny airport somebody called "Gracie!" and then there was a short-haired women bearing down on them. Grace hadn't been expecting anybody, and whipped around to break into a smile.

"Jeanne!"

The two women hugged, and then Greg was subject to some careful scrutiny. He put on his disarming smile, and introduced himself.

It turned out this was Grace's youngest aunt - since she herself was the oldest daughter of an oldest daughter, they only differed a year in age, and had been close growing up. Jeanne lived in Yellowknife, because her husband was the local hockey coach. She was a nurse at the hospital.

"And the cabin is on our land. Let me drive you there."

The cabin was utilitarian; bathroom, kitchenette, and one large room with four bunk beds built into the walls. It was set up for overnight stays and weekends. Apparently until a few years ago people had crashed at Jeanne's house when they came to the city, but with the current generation reaching the age of the weekend bar crawl, a different solution had been found.

"There's coffee and tea stuff, and I put milk in the fridge. Feel free to come to my place for breakfast, or the boys keep lots of sugary cereal here if you go for that sort of thing," Jeanne smiled. Then she left them alone, driving on to her own house some 500 metres further along the driveway.

Grace dropped her bag, stretched out lazily.

"I hate sitting around all day. Wanna go for a walk? That's a nice vantage point about two klicks away."

It was just past midnight and still twilight - it wouldn't get full dark at all - and Greg wasn't used to spending a whole day sitting, either.

"Sounds good."

 

It was a clear night, and after a gentle climb they could see endlessly far over the lake, gleaming silvery in the twilit night. Greg admired the view, but spent almost as much time looking at Grace's face. She was singing under her breath, and there was something in her face, in the roll of her hips as she walked, comfortable and easy. She talked with her hands more, but seemed more still somehow, more settled.

"What?" she smiled, catching him looking.

"Just that you seem.. different here," he said, unable to word exactly how.

"This is the source," she shrugged, eyes on the lake. "It's too cold and the winters are too damn long and my family drives me crazy sometimes. But I think there's a stake hammered in the ground somewhere over there--" she gestured into the distance, to the other side of the lake where the ranch was, "and my heart is attached to it by a really long elastic band. I can go anywhere in the world, and then suddenly sometime when I'm in a helo or standing on deck or.. there's this tug, you know?"

"I don't know from experience," he said softly. "But I think I understand."

He'd never found home in places; Toronto was a location, one he liked, but it didn't give him this kind of grounded feeling. Home was in people. Home was in his team, in watching Ed tease Jules, hearing irritation fight with amusement in her voice, seeing Spike grin. In the way his son said 'Hey Greg' in a way that made it sound like 'dad'. And increasingly, home was with her, in the laughter lines around her eyes, the curve of her hip when she leaned in the doorway to greet him, in the glint in her eyes.

He palmed the pebble he had in his pocket, then let go of it again to pull her close for a kiss

 

The next day involved a shopping trip with Armand and four younger men from the unspecific 'cousin/nephew' category he suspected he'd be seeing a lot of. The family tree was complicated.

Then a four hour drive over the Yellowknife Highway. The truck was fairly new - fuel efficient vehicles for the drive to the city, any old trucks for driving around at the ranch itself - and had a modern sound system. Grace plugged in her ipod and started a playlist called 'Greg Made Me Do It,' which was full of power ballads.

"Well, you were the one who said I should go do karaoke," she grinned when he raised an eyebrow at her. She sang along under her breath, and when he gave in and allowed himself to air-drum along with Journey, she gradually lost whatever inhibition she had about singing aloud.

Which was how they ended up driving the Yellowknife Highway, belting along with Roxette and grinning until his cheeks ached.

Once they'd turned off the highway they passed over a cattle grate and then drove for nearly an hour on the dirt road that was the driveway of the ranch. They stopped a few times, because sometimes there were bison on the road, and it took some slow driving and sustained use of the claxon to push through.

"This is how we always know when people are coming," she flashed him a grin. "The damn beasts like to hang out on the road, in the sun."

This area was heavily wooded, and the road was one of the few places the sun penetrated. Apparently on the other side of the section where the houses were, there was a more tundra like landscape. Greg watched the enormous animals grudgingly move aside for the truck. 

"How tame are they?"

"Differs. This is a bachelor herd. They aren't usually handled much, and they can be curious and pushy. I'd prefer not to get out of the car without a dog to help with crowd control."

He could imagine that. They were huge, with a shoulder height easily as tall as he was, and a group of inquisitive giants didn't seem all that safe to walk amongst.

"We've got cows and calves closer to home. It's late calving time, and the pregnant mama's and the ones with young calves are probably still in the paddock. They're used to feeding and handling."

Some time later he saw a shape streak out of the trees and begin to keep pace with the truck. Grace slowed down a little, smiling.

"Here's our escort." It was a dog, a cattle dog mix of some kind, enthusiastically running along the side of the road, barking occasionally. A few minutes later it was joined by a two more.       
  


The ranch was centred around a circular paddock perhaps 300m in diameter. All the winter houses and workshops were on the road that circled it, so that even in the midst of winter everything stayed reasonably accessible. The forest wasn't as dense here, with plenty of light reaching the ground.

The 'summer cabins' - some of which looked like they'd been expanded on to make them winter suitable - were further out from the main circle. After they'd dropped off groceries, and promised to return for dinner that night, Grace drove them to a cabin almost a kilometre from the main houses.

It sat on a shelf on a hillside, next to a little stream that ran through a deep, narrow channel. Looked like sometimes there was a lot more water in there. There was a small water mill getting turned there with a pleasant, rhythmic sound. In front of the cabin it was a rough wooden bench, and there'd been some recent work done to the door.

"Bear tried to get in to hibernate here," she said when he remarked on it. Then, seeing the consternation he tried to mask, "they only do that in early winter."

"Right."

Inside was basic - living room with a kitchen corner, fireplace, bathroom with a tub. Rough wooden stairs to two bedrooms upstairs. Most of the furniture was handmade, and there were brightly coloured bison rugs on the floor.

"So do you want to explore, or is this more of a 'put your feet up and chill' kind of week for you?" she asked once they had their things settled.

"I want to do.. I'd really like you to show me your home and all the things you miss when you think of this place," he said slowly. "I am tired, but I've already caught up on sleep. It's more about the pressure at work than physically."

"Okay. So we could spend a day looking around the workshops, we could borrow the boat and spend a day on the lake, there's a research post not far from here where they track the local wolf population… oh, and we could ask my cousin if he'll let us come on a dog run…"

"Sled dogs?"

"He's training for the Iditarod. In summer he runs the dogs in front of little wheeled trikes. It's fun," she grinned.

"That sounds interesting. We should probably start with meeting your family though, right?"

"Sometimes I forget that for you, meeting new people isn't the tiring part."

 He smiled, because it true that he was far more of an extravert than she was.    
"Do I need a primer to make sense of your family?"

She shrugged.

"It's helpful to know there are two main branches. My grandmother and her brother managed to set up here in the 1930s. Her brother and his children have always run the animal side, so cattle, slaughter, meat and so on. My grandparents mostly did support; built houses, took care of food  and so on. Then once they were set up, Mémé started the maker side, and most of her children and grandchildren branched out from that."

"And who am I likely to meet tonight?"

"It's my mother's house we're going to. Mémé lives with her, but last time I saw her she wasn't doing so well. At Christmas she was struggling to remember me, though it might be better again since it's summer. She really only speaks Dogrib these days. I don't speak it very well, so my mother will probably need to translate."

He nodded.

"Beside Armand I have two sisters, who between them have nine children, some of whom have children of their own now. Some if not most of them will be there tonight, I expect." She bit her lip, glancing up at him. "It sort of is big news for me to bring somebody home. That's only happened once before."

She'd told him about the Marine she'd almost married eight years ago. Apparently he'd just assumed she'd be quitting her job once they were married, so that he always had somebody to come home to.

Yeah, he couldn't really picture that.

 

They went for a late afternoon jog, which was about half actual exercise (accompanied by three cheerful dogs) and half exploring the ranch. He met his first bison face to - giant - face. It was an older cow, standing out sharply in the maternal herd because she was pale beige, almost white. White bison had special significance, and she had therefore been raised as a pet.

"She can go anywhere, but she likes to hang out here," Grace smiled, scratching the animal on the forehead.

There were a few more cows leaning against the heavy wooden fence, stretching their heavy necks in hope of attention and treats. Apparently a determined bison could easily clear the fence, but since the paddock was usually open to the rest of the ranch anyway, it mostly was the place where the animals that needed regular human eyes on them stayed.

"What stops them from stomping around the houses?"

"The dogs," she said brightly. "It's more of a winter issue."

They ran on, past a large, silent shed that was the slaughterhouse ("It's not the season. The snow is only just gone, it isn't worth slaughtering anything right now") and onward over a narrow trail. It led to a lake, maybe kilometre in length and half of that across. The shores of Great Slave Lake were another five kilometres further; this small lake was part of the ranch.

"How are you with climbing trees?" Grace asked, which was apparently a rhetorical question, because she was already halfway up the trunk of a large tree at the lake shore before he could say "Fine, really."

He did okay on the climbing wall at the station, anyway. It wasn't his strongest point, but he enjoyed it.

The tree wasn't so hard to climb, anyway, and wear on the bark - and one or two strategic foot supports - made clear this was a popular spot.

About halfway up he found her on a small platform - more like two horizontal planks, forming a seat.

"Popular spot?"

He settled in next to her, automatically curling an arm around her. They were in a perfect place to look out over the little lake. There was a small island, and a little further down the shore there was a shed and a dock with a few canoes.

"In winter we play hockey here," she said quietly. "Even have one of those ice cleaning machines."

"Family league?"

She huffed a laugh, nodding. "Fanatics too. Good when people get cabin fever. We drive down here, and there's a whole line of trucks there," she pointed, "so the spectators can sit warm, and the players can warm up in between periods. Plus, sometimes we need the headlights to see. I think they're talking about building a proper warming shack now."

He smiled, because remembering Armand and Remy and Martin, he could just picture how that sort of thing would be needed to maintain sanity. Minus 35 Celsius was a pretty normal temperature for the winter months.

They lapsed into comfortable silence. The calls of the geese in the distance echoed over the still water, and he let the quiet murmurs of the landscape around them take his thoughts away.

At some point Grace sighed and moved to kiss his cheek, and he became aware that he'd been sitting there for quite some time, and that he'd been thinking of nothing at all. It had been pleasant. Of course, that realisation immediately reminded him of the things he hadn't been thinking about, and thoughts of his team and the resignation papers that he'd left at home came flooding back.

"We should go get ready for dinner."


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, full steam ahead now I've got some things figured out...

Dinner was a busy affair. Grace was the oldest of her siblings, and her sisters had children ranging from teenager to early twenties. The oldest of them had just began to have children of their own; there was a toddler and two babies. The toddler was apparently in the stage of 'I don't know you, that makes you fascinating' and spent half the night clamouring for Greg's attention, which he didn't mind at all. Emma was about a year and a half, with chubby round cheeks and a head full of curly hair and the absolute conviction that sitting on his lap would be just wonderful.

Grace's mother Gabrielle, who had been initially reserved, clearly found his indulgence of her grandchild endearing, because she warmed up to him over the course of the meal. It helped that he got the occupation conversation out of the way, emphasising the crisis negotiation aspect of his job. Law enforcement couldn't count on a lot of support here, but talking instead of shooting was probably the most acceptable part of it.

She'd never more than mentioned her father in passing, and once they were all at the table Greg understood why; the man was mid sixties, but looked closer to eighty, and didn't really seem fully present. The conversation largely floated past him, and his children made little effort to involve him. He had a large glass of something alcoholic - Greg was seated too far away to smell what it was, and he thought maybe Grace had done that on purpose - which he emptied twice over during the course of the meal, ignoring the glass of water he'd been given.

Mémé on the other hand was apparently having a good day, recognising Grace and seeming interested in Greg. At least, given the looks and occasional sharp elbow to Grace's side, she was asking questions about him. She spoke an extreme version of the language mix he'd heard Grace speak with her brother and cousins, which Grace seemed to understand but sometimes needed her mother to help her reply.

He let Emma ride horsie on his knee and let the flow of the conversation wash over him, listening more to the tone than the words he couldn't understand. Grace, her mother and Mémé sounded fond and close, and he got the impression that there was some kind of oldest daughter tradition or expectation she had broken by leaving; that if she'd stayed and married here, she would eventually have taken over from her mother as matriarch.

Mémé asked him a few questions, and he told her about himself, about his son. He smiled at the way the old lady was not even slightly subtle in her assessment, and at Grace's eyeroll when Mémé asked - via Grace's mother - if he could take care of his granddaughter.

"I can, and do," he said, "and she takes care of me, too."

He'd half expected questions about marriage, but the old lady just nodded in satisfaction. The four-way conversation seemed to have tired her, and just then a baby started crying, Emma wanted her mother, and the rest of the meal passed in regular levels of boisterousness.

Grace made their excuses not long after dinner.

 

"The alcohol was about to come out," she said when they were walking back to the cabin.

He wanted to ask more, say they didn't need to leave for his sake, but there was something terse about the way she'd said it, something uncomfortable about the set of her shoulders.

 

It was still light, wouldn't get completely dark, and they ended up sitting on the wooden bench in front of the cabin, drinking tea and just enjoying the sounds of the place. The song and rustle of birds and small forest creatures was underlain with the steady beat of the water mill. For a while was an occasional distant roaring that reminded him of lions more than anything, but was apparently the sound of two bulls having an evening scrap.

Grace was stretched out on her back, her head pillowed on his thigh. She was taking deep, slow breaths in a way that made him think she was basking in the moment just as much as he was.

At some point there was a distant howl, and it was taken up from several directions. He'd known there were wolves in the area - she'd mentioned rubber bullets and tasers - but they'd apparently never had danger in summer. Knowing they were there and hearing them like this, though, were two completely different things.

"How far off, do you think?"

"Ten, twelve miles," she said softly, not opening her eyes. "There's an observation post that way," she made a vague motion in the direction of the little lake, "two PhD students camping out there all summer to observe the wolves."

"That must get lonely," he said, stroking her hair. Also kind of peaceful. Maybe not for a whole summer, but he could see himself enjoying it for a few weeks.

Yeah, right. Like he wouldn't be climbing the figurative walls inside of a week. He sucked at enforced inactivity. He needed to feel like he was useful.

"Yeah. We supply them - If you're interested we could do this week's supply run, maybe see the pack from up close."

"I would like that."

Then a howl was taken up much closer and from the opposite direction, and he startled a little.

"That's the sled dogs," she smiled.   

 

She'd been back home long enough to be back into her civilian sleeping pattern, which meant he woke long before her the next morning. When he found himself churning through the same unproductive thoughts about work as he'd had on his mind for weeks, he quietly got up to go for a run.

He took water, power bars and their GPS unit, and then went to try if he could run around the lake where they'd gone the evening before.

That turned out to involve quite a bit of off-trail running and a significant amount of mud, but that was sort of enjoyable in itself. The concentration it took to cross uneven ground and dodge whippy tree branches dragged him into here and now and away from the gloomy work related thoughts.

At one point he had to slow down and carefully, casually avoid a small group of bison. Grace and her brother in law had given him some instruction on how to handle the bison, and from what they said the animals were generally non-confrontational. He should be safe enough, but they were very large, and he wasn't too confident about reading their body language, so he played it safe. They only raised their heads to watch him pass.

When he got back two hours later he took a shower and when he got out Grace was just waking up, looking sleep-mussed and adorable. She stretched lazily and then held out her arms to him, making grabby hands.

He gave in and crawled under the covers, dropping the damp towel on the floor. She was warm and pliant, responding to his kiss with a lazy, low sound of pleasure that made him shiver a little.

 

He fell asleep again later, feeling comfortable and drowsy, his limbs heavy.

 

He woke up from a light sleep to hear splashing outside, and children's voices. When he wandered outside - barefoot, and there was something wonderful about that - he found Grace standing in the creek channel, a little downstream of the water mill. Her hair was tied back, her glasses shoved up into it. Sunlight refracted off water drops on the lenses.

She was busy building a dam out of rock and sticks supplied to her by Remy and two children of about seven years old. A pool was gathering behind the rough damn, and she was knee deep in the water, her shorts rolled up.

"Hey." She looked up at him, swiping her hair out of her face with the back of her hand.

He could help smiling down at her, at how unselfconscious she was, how alive.

"Engineering works?"

"We wanted a pool," she shrugged with a grin.

 

He slept a lot over the next few days, far more than he did at home, which was cheerfully and shamelessly encouraged by Grace. He curled up on the couch - or in the big hammock outside - with her more than once to find himself waking several hours later, a knitted afghan covering him. He slept better at night now too, no longer waking up quite so early.

They'd spent a day going around the workshops, meeting what felt like a hundred aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. Grace spent a day talking shop in the office and the fibre shack, while he helped Armand chop down a tree that was getting unstable. In autumn the ranch hired a lumber crew with portable sawmill equipment to get them enough wood for winter, but this was done mostly by hand. When he got back to the cabin that night the bed felt like heaven for his tired limbs.

They went onto a training run with the sled dogs, which was outright terrifying - the trikes went very fast over rather narrow trails, and there was no way to steer the dogs but hope and faith. 

The visit to the wolf observation station was breathtaking; the main observation was in a platform directly overlooking the den, and they spent half the day just sitting quietly shoulder to shoulder, watching the cubs play.

They'd spent some of their evenings with various parts of the family, playing games, listening to music, or stories. It was interesting to observe Grace; he'd learned that while she had her own sense of spirituality, by the standards of most of her family she'd drifted a long way. She didn't know all the songs, and listened raptly to stories, some of which were new to her.

"I left behind a lot when I left," she shrugged when he asked about it. "I needed to, I had an entire new culture I needed to fit into." She'd been building a new life in the Navy.  


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't forgotten about this.. but I have gotten distracted, because I HATE endings (not writing them - watching the end of series) so I haven't watched the last episode yet. As long as I haven't seen it the fictional world stays sort of 'open' in my head. It's why I haven't watched the end of Stargate Atlantis (seriously, I haven't) and why I pretend Serenity doesn't exist..

On the Saturday, their last full day, they took a rowboat onto the lake. The small island was full of birds, an after a nice workout in rowing across - they worked well together, but he'd already known that, they always had - they floated idly on the marshy side of the island, listening and watching.

He was sitting upright, observing the geese with their fluffy grey young. Grace was leaning with her back against his chest, her head against his shoulder, listening with closed eyes and a smile on her face.

"I can see how you miss this place," he said softly, shifting a little. "I think I will, too."

"Yeah?" she tilted her head back to look up at him.

He nodded, and they were silent for a while.

"Are you okay with going home, though?" she asked carefully.

He idly played with the end of her braid, trailing his fingers over the smooth hair.

"I'm.. I guess I am," he said finally.

"I don't know if I ever made this clear, so maybe I should," she began, shifting a little so she could look at him more comfortably. "But if you decide to quit, you know we'll make that work out, right? Please don't go back because you think you need to for me, or for money."

Being here had made him understand some of her self-assuredness in how she led her life, her fearlessness in making choices. She'd forged her own way, made her own money, bought her own house. But she'd also always known, still knew, that if things should go to hell, she could come here, and her family would gladly take her in. It was a luxury, she'd acknowledged as much, when your worst case scenario was actually still pretty good.

He looked down on her, realising that at some point over the course of the week he'd stopped thinking about work, and when he'd started again, it was only in terms of getting back to the team. The idea that he might not return to work had quietly faded off the table, without him even realising it.

"It's… it's where I need to be," he said finally, feeling the surety of it settle into him. "it's where I want to be."

"Good," she smiled, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.   

The sun shone down on them, strong enough to break out the sunscreen, and then they dozed in the boat, gently rocked by the wavelets. Greg felt utterly at peace. He'd normally consider this laziness, perhaps get restless about it. But laziness was, as Grace would say, a perfectly appropriate response to the situation.

She let out a hum, a happy sound of comfort, and shifted closer against his side, face tucked against his neck. Greg moved a little to accommodate her and felt the shape of a pebble in his pocket. Took it out, and put it in her hand. She looked at it, examining the break surface that he'd polished, the tiny, perfect heart it showed.

And the question just came out, unplanned

She pushed herself up to look him in the eyes for a long, searching moments, and then she smiled so warmly that he forgot to worry about her answer. Just kissed her, slow and thorough and _right_.

When the kiss ended, she propped her chin up on the hand she had on his chest.

"There's something I want to talk about before I give an answer, is that okay?"

He couldn't very well say no to that, so he just nodded. Shoved a bag under his head so he could look at her more easily.

"I worry that I've... misrepresented myself to you, and I just need to know that's cleared up before we have this," she wrapped one hand around his hand, the pebble caught between their palms, "conversation."

Greg tried to maintain an even breathing rhythm, trying to tamp down the fear that he'd gotten this all wrong, that they were not on the same page, that they weren't even reading the same book.

"Misrepresented?" he prompted.

"I worry that you think that once I've retired it's going to be the nesting thing all the time," she said, making a face he couldn't interpret.

"The nesting thing?"

"You know, me at home, baking, spinning. Cooking when you get home. The domestic goddess thing."

He willed her to continue, make some sense of this.

"You've really only ever met me in the periods that I'm recovering from tour, when I'm overdosing on the domestic things because I don't get to have them the other two-thirds of my time. I look forward to signing off, because I want to spend more time with you, I really do, and I don't want to do this time-pressure thing anymore," she drew a deep breath. "I don't want to have to start to think about leaving just when we're really finding a rhythm together. I don't want to dread the big manila envelop of doom. But if there was nothing on the horizon, just domestic home life, I would probably go a little insane."

"I thought you were going to work in the shop," he said, in a level tone, trying to process what this meant. Truth be told, that _was_ kind of how he'd pictured their life together.

"I do intend to be more involved, but Shelley is doing a great job."

"What are you saying?" he asked, trying not to brace, trying to leave it open for her.

She squeezed his arm.

"That I really want to marry you, and live with you, and spend a lot more time together, and not have to leave all the time... but that there's a real chance I'll take up... I don't know, base jumping--"

He snorted a laugh, giddy relief rising to his head.

"--or, or ocean sailing, or hang-gliding, or kite surfing, or deep water welding, or, or--" she gave him an imploring, hopeful look, "and I just need to know that you know that, and if you need to think about if that's what you want then that's--"

He freed his hands and cupped them around her face, thumbs along her jaw, and she stilled. He held still for a long moment, looking into her deep brown eyes. Then he pulled her in and kissed her.

"Thought about it. Still want to marry you," he said when he broke the kiss. She let out a long breath, letting her head tip forward onto his shoulder. It was a strange thought that she'd been worried he wouldn't want to marry her if it was going to be like that.

"Really though, base jumping?"

"Okay, maybe not base jumping," she conceded, a little muffled. "Maybe climb a mountain. Build a raft and float down the St Lawrence. Cross an ocean on one of those big sailing ships. And I want to do a coast to coast road trip at some point."

"In other words, be away a lot?"

She looked up, eyes a little guilty.

"Not nearly as much as when I was working? But a few weeks now and then, yes. I don't like the being away from you parts, but I love coming home to you."

He smiled, because that actually sounded kind of appealing - missing her a few weeks, and getting her back full of stories and energy.

"As long as you save some adventures for when I have time, too," he said.

"Of course."

She settled back in against his shoulder, and he dropped a kiss on her hair.

"How do you picture getting married?" he asked. He already had a wedding behind him, but it would be her first time. She might have an image in her head about it.

"Mm, small, low fuss."

"Yeah?"

"If you want to have a big do, that's fine by me, but I would totally be up for going to the registry next week and then having a drink with your team in the evening."

"No big white dress?"

She huffed an amused breath.

"Uniform?" he grinned.

She pushed herself upright and then slung a leg over his, sitting astride of his lap. She levelled him with a very, very intent look over the rim of her glasses. He knew she wasn't as serious as she looked - she would have made distance between them if she had been, not pushed close to him - but his heart still pounded at the intensity of her, at the knowledge that they were really going to do this. This was all real, and she was larger than life right now, filling his whole world.

"Gregory Parker, I love you, but if you think I'm going to get married in my dress uniform, you are seriously mistaken," she said, corner of her lips twitching.

He cupped his hands around her face and kissed her breathless, feeling her smile into the kiss, feeling her body melt against his.

They were both breathing hard when the kiss ended, looking into each other's eyes, and he couldn't help smiling. This felt so good, so _right_.

"I've been carrying that around for months now," he said, hand cupping around the pebble between her fingers. "Thought about making it into a ring, but I wasn't sure if you wore rings." He'd never actually seen her wear one.

"Good call. Maybe a bracelet? I'd be able to wear that more often."

"Or--" he cut himself off, remembering the cheap sport watch she wore at home. (not here, where they'd both deliberately took off their watches) If he could cut it thin enough, a slice of the pebble would make a nice back plate for a small, elegant watch. He'd have to look into artisan watchmakers when he got home.

"Or?"

"Surprise," he shrugged with a smile.

"Okay," she let it go. "You'd wear a ring though, no?"

He nodded, unsure if she'd interpret that as 'so you should arrange one for me.'

"I'm gonna need your ring size."

She kissed him soundly, clearly already having ideas about a ring, and he reminded himself that she didn't care at all about the things his ex had cared about back when they'd gotten married. Like traditions of who was supposed to buy rings, about doing things 'properly'.  She'd grown up with an entirely different sort of wedding.

"Hey, were you serious about going to the registry next week?"

"If it's what you want, absolutely," he said.

"Because small and low-key sounds good to me, and if we give them any time to prepare my family will make a huge fuss, and… well, I'd like Vicky to be my witness, but she's going to New Zealand for a year next month."

"She's in Montreal, right? Think she could make.. say, Thursday? I think we're doing early shifts this week, so we should be okay for the afternoon."

Grace's smile grew slowly at the realisation that he was serious.

"As for my witness, Dean is arriving monday."

"Oh! Of course, he's just turned 18." She hesitated. "Are you sure he's going to be okay with all this?"

His son had skyped with Grace a few more times after that first time. He'd been positive the few times she'd come up in email, so he wasn't worried about it.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's going to be really happy for us."

They looked at each other for a long, silent moment, both grinning.

"We're really doing this," she said, a realisation and a question at the same time.

"We're really doing this," he agreed, kissing her.

 

They ate with Grace's mother and direct family again that night. Everybody seemed excited about the engagement, though he caught a few glances from Grace that made him think she wasn't completely comfortable with some of them.

"Hey, can we leave off the 'What a relief' reactions?" she finally aimed at one of her sisters. "I liked my life. I didn't need to be saved from it."

He moved his leg a little, pressing the side of his knee against hers in silent support.

  
After the meal Grace sat on a low stool next to her grandmother, and the two women hugged for a long time, talking in low voices.

Mémé asked her daughter to retrieve something, and some time later Gabrielle returned with a small cloth bundle. When it was opened Grace's eyes widened.

Greg had been talking with Armand, but couldn't help noticing Grace's sister Claudie, the second oldest daughter, pointedly looking away.

"Oldest daughter traditions," Armand said under his breath. Perhaps Claudie had thought that as the oldest daughter who'd married and had kids and still lived on the ranch, whatever Mémé was giving to Grace ought to have been hers.

It was getting late, and they made their goodbyes. They'd leave early in the morning, and would only see Grace's parents, and Armand who would drive them to Yellowknife. There was some more quiet talking between Grace, her mother and grandmother, and Mémé finally kissed her on the forehead in goodbye.

 

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder as they walked back, and she attuned her steps with his, leaning into his side. Her eyes shone with moisture, and she'd put the cloth bundle into her shoulderbag almost reverentially.

"Are you okay?"

She let out a long breath.

"Yeah," she finally said, as they walked up to the cabin. "It's Mémé's wedding shawl. She said she would have given it to me tonight no matter what."

Because the old lady didn't expect to live very much longer, he realised.

 

He made tea for them both and then nudged her to get into the big hammock outside. She curled into him once they were both in, and he pushed against the tree trunk to set them swinging gently.

"Vicky is driving over on Tuesday," she said after a while.

He fished out his phone to show her Dean's reply to the news. It simply read

_:-) !!! :-)_


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh God, I FINALLY watched the finale, and it wasn't as painful as I feared (apart from Donna *cries*) though of course I'd been thoroughly spoiled. The rest of this is a little patchy, but I'm just eager to get it out and done at this point, and my single reader will have to forgive me :-D

Greg had felt amazingly relaxed that last day up North, but coming home, to the resignation papers he'd left on the kitchen counter, brought back a lot of the crap he'd escaped for a week. He knew SRU was where he wanted to be, needed to be. He wasn't ready to quit. But that didn't mean his confidence issues were suddenly resolved, that he felt he was the person his team could build on. The person they needed.

He and Grace had each returned to their own houses on return from the airport. He'd expected to enjoy having his own space, but after having spent a week in a cabin with her he found his own house impossibly empty and dark.

He had the monday off, and the team barbecue would be in the afternoon. Not knowing what to do with himself, he spent the morning first researching if the idea of having a custom watch made was feasible. It was, so he spent two hours sweating over the process of sawing a perfect, thin slice off the pebble.

They'd agreed to exchange something simple as a symbol during the ceremony, so that there was time for the ring and watch to be made. Once he had what he needed for the watch, he sat down with silver wire and pliers and made the other half of the pebble into a pendant. That took him into early afternoon, when it was time to pick Dean up at the airport.

By the time they'd had a late lunch and gotten Dean's two huge suitcases to the house and into his room, it was well into the afternoon and time to get ready for the barbecue.

***

"But life is not over. I know that's what it feels like right now," Greg said, trying to maintain eye contact with the subject. Trying to stop him from going back to looking over the edge. "But you have so much time. This is just the end of one chapter of your life. You can start writing a new one, right now."

"You have his attention, boss," Jules said in his ear. "He wants to hear this."

"I've been where you are," Greg said. "My wife had left me and she took our son with her. Wouldn't let me see him. And I spent a lot of time thinking about why I should keep going on when there seemed to be no point. I wish I could send a message back in time to myself and say 'Hey, there's all these great things still ahead of you'. "

He canted his head a little, giving the desperate man at the railing a steady look. Took a risk.

"Because do you know what I'm doing this afternoon? I'm going to get married to a wonderful woman, and my son is going to be my witness."

He heard a shocked, delighted "Sarge!" from Jules. He'd chosen not to tell the team in advance, because once they knew there'd be no keeping them out, and he and Grace had agreed to have witnesses only. Grace had said she didn't mind, but he knew she really only had Vicky to invite down here in the South, and he didn't like the idea of unbalancing things by throwing in five more people. They'd all go for a drink tomorrow.

"And I'm not saying that it didn't take a long time to get here, or that everything is perfect now, or that your life is going to get better tomorrow," he continued, not wanting to let the man take his words as if Greg was rubbing his happiness into the man's face. "But there's a hell of a lot of good things I would have missed out on if I'd closed the book in the middle and pulled the trigger back then."

"He's hearing you, he's de-escalating," Jules said in his ear.

It took another 40 minutes for the man to step down off the ledge, and by that time Greg felt pretty drained, but very relieved.

"Nice work, boss," Jules said, once they'd handed the man over to the EMTs who would bring him to the mental health crisis centre.

"Thanks. How is it going in that diner?"

They'd had to split up when a second emergency came in. Since Greg had already been talking to the suicidal man on the bridge by then, they'd opted for Jules to stay and back him up, and Ed, Spike, Sam and Leah to the diner where a robbery had turned into a hostage situation.

"Threat level yellow and apparently stable for the moment. Ed's still talking, and they have a tactical plan in place."

"OK, good."

"Now spill," she commanded once they'd gotten into the car.

He gave her a very dry look.

"I mean-" she turned over the engine and drove off the bridge. "I'm really happy for you! I just didn't even know you were engaged."

"Only have been for a couple of days," he smiled. "We got to that point and then didn't see why we'd have to wait a long time to get married."

Jules grinned.

"And it's just a quick registry thing. Dean is my witness, and Gracie's got a friend who drove down from Montreal."

He'd met Vicky the day before; a short, stout woman of mixed raced descent. She used to be a Navy cook, and now worked on sailing ships.

Vicky had the same kind of take-no-prisoners style he'd seen in almost all the women Grace counted as friends or family. No surprise, really, because Grace considered 'You get shit done' to be a compliment of the highest order.

He turned his attention back to Jules.  
"Then I hope you guys want to come by for cake tomorrow afternoon."

"Absolutely."

 

The diner situation, obeying Murphey's Law, dragged out into overtime. Ed was still negotiating, so Greg interviewed witnesses and family, and was scene coordinator, orchestrating the officers and EMTs standing by. Shift had officially ended at 13:00, and Greg was supposed to be at home at 15:00 at the latest to change, pick up Dean and head to the registry office, where Grace had booked time for them at 16:00.

At 14:10 he called her.

"Hello my intended," she answered, and the smile in her voice took his breath a moment, the joy he heard.

"Hello Gracie-love. How's your day been so far?"

"Got all the paperwork sorted out, and we are on for 1600 hours."

At that moment team 3 arrived, and he knew she could hear the sirens of the approaching cars.

"So… you're still at work?" Grace said when the noise dimmed down. Donna Sabine got out of one of the cars, and he waved her over.

"Yeah, this situation just keeps dragging out and it's hard to hand over negotiations. Listen, I will be there, okay? I'll just be coming straight from work. Can you swing by my place and pick up Dean? I'll call him to let him know what clothes to bring for me."

He'd seen the dress she and Vicky had gone shopping for on the hanger - simple, dark blue with polka dots and a sailor style white collar. She'd grinned that it was kind of navy themed after all, and he'd picked a nice blue shirt to go with it, distantly astonished at how easy and stress-free this all was compared to his first wedding.

"Okay, will do. Keep me updated about your progress?"

"Yes," he confirmed. Then, seriously, because he needed her to believe this if nothing else, "Gracie, I _will_ be there, okay? Even if Jules has to drive me there on lights and sirens. I promise you that."

"Even if Jules has to drive you _where_?" Donna asked with a grin, while Greg tucked his phone away.

"Nothing," he told her cheerfully, and of course that wasn't going to fly, but at that moment there was a shot from inside the diner, and the radio started blaring with status updates. It turned out one of the hostages had taken one of the hostage-takers - the teenaged boy - hostage. Because that's the kind of complication that this day needed.

Some time later he was deep into a conversation with a reluctant witness/accomplice when he saw Jules come up in his peripheral vision, whisper something into Donna's ear - Donna had taken over as scene coordinator, and she'd been listening in - and then Donna came up to where he had the more-accomplice-than-witness.

"Sergeant Parker has something more important to do than talk to you," she told the man with a steady look. "And since he's a much more patient man than I am, you have two minutes to convince me I shouldn't just book you for obstruction of justice and stick you in the back of a squad car."

***

Jules drove just this side of acceptable, and under his stern look, only used the sirens twice (the flashing lights were on though. It was 16:03, and he was only human.) He'd taken off his radio and weapons during the drive, and called Grace ("I am being driven toward you at considerable speed.")

Jules found them a possibly not entirely legal parking space, and then they were headed toward the registry house at a jog.

"Sarge, your vest," Jules said, keeping pace with him and pulling loose the back velcro while he did the front. She tucked the flack vest under her arm when he was freed, and then grinned and motioned with her head.

At the top of the steps into the building were Grace and Dean and Vicky, who was holding a camera. Grace was in the blue dress, which skimmed her waist and flared out around her legs in an appealing 50s sort of way. Her grandmother's white lace bison-shawl was around her shoulders. She had her hand pressed against her mouth, but opened her arms to him when he reached the top of the steps at a jog.

It was half hug, half collision as the relief of being here, of having made it, of seeing her still there, rose to his head. He hadn't known he'd feared she would call the whole thing off until he saw her there.

She wrapped her arms around him tightly, and her shoulders shook. He was all set to start apologising, and it took him a moment to realise that she was laughing into his chest, into his black tac uniform shirt.

He glanced over her head at Dean, who shrugged with an expression that suggested this was all going rather differently from what he'd expected, too.

"I can't help it, it's so stereotype," Grace gasped finally. "It's like I'm in a romantic comedy," she grinned up at him. "Are you going to have another emergency ten seconds after we say 'I do'?"

"Definitely not," he said, kissing her soundly. Then, because it was 16:09, "Am I too late?"

"Nope. We've got until 1630."

"Let's get this show on the road, then," he smiled at her, taking her hand.

"You're coming, right?" Grace said over her shoulder to Jules, who was just tucking away her cellphone. Yeah, the rest of the team knew about the wedding right about now, Greg thought.

Jules, still in her vest and carrying his, looked maybe a little surprised.

"Uh, sure!"

 

Which was how Greg married Grace Gaudin - in tac uniform, with flack vests stacked by the door. The officiant seemed a little bemused by the whole thing, but performed the quick, informal ceremony with a smile.

Grace loved the necklace he'd made and the idea of a watch. She'd made him a simple braided bracelet in lieu of the ring that was being made. It had strands of grey, brown and cream-white, and she'd felted it for strength.

"Wolf, bear and bison fur," she said, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did. Wolves stood for leadership. Bears were protectors. And where the bison was the provider of all things, the bedrock upon which the Gaudins had built their lives, the white bison was all that and good fortune besides.

He kissed her, then rested his forehead against hers and marvelled about his good fortune in having both her and his son in his life.

***

His therapist, when he related the tale of his wedding day to her later, first congratulated him, then gave him a stern talk about destruction-testing. He might not have wanted to admit it to himself at the time, but maybe he subconsciously _had_ wanted to know if Grace would wait for him.

***

The next day he went to work while Grace and Vicky took over his kitchen, because apparently you could have a wedding without rings, guests, dancing, white dresses or indeed much prior planning at all, but a wedding without cake was some kind of terrible sin.

He took some good-natured ribbing from his team about hasty weddings, but they were happy for him, and agreed to come over after work.

When he came home from his shift in the afternoon the whole house smelled of cake, and he got powdered sugar handprints on his shirt and a kiss that tasted of lemon icing. Vicky was clearly in charge of the baking, and it was amusing to see her boss Grace around.

"That is a lot of cake," Dean said when he came home. Then, at Vicky's raised eyebrow, raised his hands defensively and grinned "That's a good thing! That's an _awesome_ thing."

 

A couple of hours later the house was full of friends. His team, Wordy, Shelley and the girls – Shelley's mother was minding the shop. Grace had invited some people she knew through volunteering at the shelter, and one of them had brought a big, friendly dog along for socialising. He supposed it was fitting given that they'd met eachother at the shelter.

Grace was sitting quietly next to him on the couch. Greg glanced at her, but she looked happy, just quietly letting the cheerful conversations wash over her. He pulled her against his side so he could press a kiss to her temple.

"You okay?" he murmured against her skin.

Her hand found his, and she laced their fingers together.

"More than okay."


	36. Chapter 36

Tonight was his retirement ceremony. Greg was not looking forward to it. Understatement. He was _dreading_ it. There'd be a lot of people who hadn't seen him since before he got injured.

It wasn't like he'd ever believed he'd get back out there as part of his team. He'd woken up in hospital with an exhausted looking Dean next to his bed, and the news that Grace was en route from Karachi. He'd been out of it, but the things he had retained from the doctor's explanation had made it very clear he wasn't expected to recover fully. Was amazingly lucky to be alive at all.

Grace had kept in touch with Dean as much as possible during the two days it had taken to get back home via military transport, and he was grateful for that. His son was a remarkable young man, but there'd been too much weight on his shoulders and Greg, post-serious trauma surgery, had in no way been able to take care of Dean or even say more than the occasional mumbled word.

His awareness had been a cycle of pain, the stupor of heavy-grade pain medication, and sleep. At some point his eyes had drifted open and Grace had been there, still in utility uniform. She'd been five weeks into a ship tour, and he'd never asked what she had had to do to get home so fast, but she had dark circles under her eyes. The relief of seeing her had been secondary to the relief that there was somebody who could get his son home and fed properly.

Three weeks later he'd been discharged from the hospital. It had only taken one night sleeping in the bed they'd moved downstairs for him to start looking at real estate sites. He'd selected a few places, Grace had done recon to narrow it down, and they'd closed on a wheelchair-suitable level-floor place with an adapted bathroom and a big yard less than a week later. Then Grace's brother had driven down with three nephews and moved them into the new place with such an 'Of course, what else?' attitude that Greg hadn't even felt too bad about being reduced to sitting in his wheelchair and pointing where things should go.

The first two months he'd just been grateful to be alive at all, to have his son and Grace near. To be improving – al be it slowly – and get little bits of independence back, even though he was still in a wheelchair. The trauma from the shot to his torso and the subsequent surgery needed to heal before he could begin physio sessions to relearn to walk.

It wasn't until after they'd moved and settled in that the frustration and anger had really set in. His progress had plateau'd – he could manage the few steps from the bed to the attached bathroom, but only because there were handrails to lean on. He still spent the majority of his awake time in his wheelchair. Grace was good at helping him without making him feel too selfconscious, but he had never been good at being dependent on others. He was all too aware that she was a highly trained military specialist who had taken personal leave to be his nurse, and that despite what she might say, she was bored.

They'd had a few arguments – his therapist said it was only natural, but it had made him feel worse – and then Grace had, in typical parallel-thinking style, come home with a solution.

Greg startled from his thoughts as a big, furry head pushed itself under his elbow, and realised he'd been staring in the mirror for a while now, twisting his wedding band around his finger. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, bad leg stretched out in front of him. He'd paused after getting his trousers on. Greg didn't think the frustration about how difficult that simple task was now would ever fade. He was more or less functional, but the mobility problems weren't likely to improve much further. On long days out or going to places where there'd be a lot of walking, he still used his wheelchair.

"Hey Bear. Did Gracie send you to poke me?" he asked the dog, petting her silky brown ears. The dog grumbled affectionately in response, and leaned against him a little. She was already wearing her service dog jacket, so the answer to that was probably 'yes'.

Grace had met the dog, a giant brown Newfoundland-Labrador mix, in the shelter. The dog had been been brought in as a neglect case, and Grace had taken her home with the idea Greg might enjoy socialising her.

He had. Having Bear (Grace had insisted on the name, and he hadn't argued) with him had given him something to focus on, a source of companionship and comfort he didn't need to ask for or feel guilty about. She loved Grace and Dean, who both frequently took her for walks, but she adored Greg and didn't like to leave his side.

Teaching her tricks had entertained him, and her patient, soulful eyes had motivated him through every painful physio session as he was relearning to walk.

It hadn't been his intention to train her as his service dog, he hadn't known he'd want or need one. But she'd naturally picked up behaviours that were helpful when he was tired and hurting, like bracing him with her weight when he stood up, and picking up things he dropped. At some point she'd gotten into the habit of shielding him from other people when he was walking. Given that walking was still enough of a strain that somebody bumping in to him was a problem, having a large, friendly dog guarding his personal space was helpful and comforting. Having her with him made him a less afraid to fall, less anxious to be out on his own in public, and his therapist had encouraged him to get the dog officially certified.

"Grizzly girl," he heard Grace admonish, "I sent you in to get him, not to hang out and cuddle," she shook her head at the dog, who gave a slow, hopeful tail wag, correctly surmising she wasn't annoyed.

"You okay?" Grace asked Greg, bending down to kiss him, slow and sweet. She was dressed more fancily than he usually saw, and he smoothed his fingers down the back of her silk shirt appreciatively.

"Yeah. Just.." he made a vague gesture, at a loss at how to explain himself.

"You weren't expecting to retire before me?" she sounded a little amused. The year personal leave meant that she still had three two-month work periods to go. She'd go back to work next month, and it would be another ship tour.

Greg was strangely looking forward to it. Not to missing her for two whole months, or knowing she was in danger, but to the intensity of seeing her again afterward. And, if he was honest, to getting her back tired and drained. Those had always been the times she needed him most, needed him to take care of her, and after so long of being the one taken care of, he was looking forward to the chance to be there for her again. He would maybe feel bad about that if she hadn't said that she enjoyed coming home and putting herself into his hands, too.

"Not sure if I was ever going to be ready for it to be official, I think," he finally said.

"Come on. You get to hang out with your team after the official part."

He refrained from saying it wasn't his team any longer. They had had this conversation multiple times and there was no solution, only frustration. Nothing was going to fix it. He was out of the SRU, only saw his team socially, and if he could just stop resenting that he was restricted to teaching theory at the academy, maybe he could.. could be happy again, or something approaching it.

He smiled wryly. For years his work had been the only part of his life he'd enjoyed, even when it had been a source of crippling stress. Now his personal life was all he'd ever wanted, and work had become the thing he resented.

Grace held out her hands to him, bracing herself so she could help him to his feet. He took her hands, allowing himself to actually rely on her balance. She was smaller than him, but she was strong, and he had finally come to trust in that.

When he was upright he slung his arm around her waist, a little bit for balance but mostly so he could pull her close to kiss her. He was getting better at believing that she was there because she wanted to be, not out of obligation, but he still felt the urge to reassure her that his moods had nothing to do with her.

"Mmm.." They were already running late, and Greg could feel her desire to sink into the kiss war with twenty years of military-drilled punctuality. She definitely hadn't been raised with it; her brother liked to poke fun at her desire to be ten minutes early wherever she went. Greg drew out the kiss just because he could.

"You're mean," she finally said against his lips, a little bit breathless.

"It has been said," he agreed with a small grin, because it was usually her saying it and it was never a complaint.

He steered them through the wide doorway and into the hallway, the dog on their heels. Grace grabbed both their coats and hung them over her arm. Greg held his hand horizontally by his side, and Bear came over and fitted her head underneath the palm of his hand, comfortable and familiar.

Grace glanced over and smiled, then came in for a brief kiss, just a press of lips.

"Love you. Come on, let's get you into the retiree business."

She ducked out of reach just before he could grab hold for retaliation tickles, and he found himself grinning as he and Bear chased her out the door and to the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww yiss, finally finished. Thank you Jebbypal for being my faithful supporter!


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